ABSTRACT
In the century between Blyton’s first publication in Britain and the current context in which her books are published, the tastes and sensibilities of both adults and children have changed drastically. Despite this, her popularity in the reading market remains as strong as ever. Blyton’s writing occupies a unique yet contested place, its spectre still haunting the experience of childhood in many parts of the world. Her writing is accessible and inaccessible by turns: sometimes aspirational for readers in postcolonial contexts, yet not reflective of the diversity of readers’ experience. Juxtaposing two very different historical and social contingencies, one English, the other South Asian, this chapter reflects on the ways in which Blyton is received, and more importantly, how her writing is to be negotiated in the worldview of the child. To reuse and reimagine Blyton’s rigid ideological stances is part of the political engagement that comes with reading her works. The reader’s sense of never quite belonging means they can truly visit the text as an outsider and haunt it like a spirit. The question, then, is why do child and adult readers continue to rework Blyton’s symbols and find ways of converting and decolonizing them?
