Award's latest editions of Enid Blyton's Secret series (The Secret Island, The Secret of Spiggy Holes, etc) are now on sale here (and might have been for a while, but I've only just come across them). They look and feel fabulous - quite bulky, as if there's a lot of story in them. And I was wondering whether Gabe might like them,when I picked up The Secret Valley, a continuation or filler in the series, written by Trevor Bolton and published earlier this year.

If you didn't know, you'd think it was written by Enid Blyton, not some fellow writing in 2009. And that's judging the book by its cover (which, as we all know, we shouldn't). The Secret Valley it says on the cover. Enid Blyton it says on the cover. The back cover blurb talks a bit about the adventure Mike, Jack, Peggy and Nora (and the hideous Prince Paul) are going to get into. No mention of Mr Bolton having written it. In fact, you have to look inside, at the half-title page to see the words "by TJ Bolton" in little letters. And, really, who looks at the half-title page apart from people working in the book industry?

Any casual shopper, looking for a Christmas present for a kid, would think they were picking up a Blyton original. Even those who read the Secret books as a kid might think this new title is just a title that's been changed (like The Secret of Killimooin is now The Secret Forest ... why?). A quick look at Keith Robinson's kiddie-magnet Blyton site would show you lots of kids who think Ms Blyton is still alive. So why wouldn't this book be authored by her?

Not only does this cover have to be against a Trades Descriptions Act somewhere, but it's terribly unfair on an author not to be credited for his work. (Well, unless you count the half-title page that hardly anyone's going to glance at.) Previous Blyton continuations have credited the author: Anne Digby's name appears in smaller letters on the cover of "Enid Blyton's" Naughtiest Girl continuations. Pamela Cox's appears in tiny letters on "Enid Blyton's" St Clare's fillers. But, wait! I  found that Pamela Cox's recently published Malory Towers continuations are also on sale in Australia (in which case it would be really nice, Borders, to have Carmen Reid's much, much better Secrets of St Jude's books out here as well). The cover says they're by "Enid Blyton TM". So where does Pamela Cox get credited? On the half-title page.

Move over, Carolyn Keene and RL Stine. Enid Blyton is here.

Boo, hiss.

The new Malory Towers books by Pamela Cox are out - well, half of them are. Three were published on 4 May with the other three to follow in September. These books follow Felicity Rivers's school career after Darrell left, because, of course, everybody who read Last Term at Malory Towers thought: "Gosh! I wish I knew what happened to Felicity after Darrell left school." No, me neither. I won't be buying these, but have a couple of thoughts about their publication:
* The six books are being published almost simultaneously, as happened with Ann Bryant's new series of boarding-school stories, Silver Spires. All six Silver Spires books were published in August last year. Is the instant series going to become the new norm with children's books, I wonder? It's interesting, because when I was a kid the books in the bookshops had been around for years - Enid Blyton, the Chalet School, the Lone Piners, the Jills. Waiting from year to year for books to be published didn't happen. Well, I suppose you had to wait for years and years for Armada to publish the Chalets, but the hardbacks were there and in libraries and schools. But in general, if you liked a series it was possible to read the lot. Whereas maybe if the target market for Silver Spires, for example, had to be content with one or two books appearing every year, then their interest might well be gone before the third book came out. Much better from a marketing perspective to have the whole series ready to buy.
* The new Malory Towers books aren't the only Blyton follow-ons due to be published over the next or so. The syndication of Enid Blyton is now well underway, and in the years to come the name Enid Blyton on the books won't mean any more than the author name Carolyn Keene on the Nancy Drews. I really don't like this. For all I know the new books might be brilliant (and I have heard many people say that Trevor Bolton, who's writing The Secret Valley, a new book in the 'Secret' series, is an excellent writer). But once you add in these new books, plus the new Famous Five ones, and the Naughtiest Girls, and the Just Georges, you're going to hit the point where there are more non-Blytons with the name Enid Blyton on the cover than Blytons with the name Enid Blyton on the cover. I do feel the same about the Chalet School series fill-ins and continuations, but at least that has stemmed from fandom, not from a big company trying to turn a well-loved author into a "brand". Only time will tell whether these new books prove as enduring as Enid's originals have been.