The Magic Faraway Tree Collection by Enid Blyton

Imagine being able to walk to the woods at the bottom of your garden where the leaves of the trees whisper to each other that you are there and find yourself at the bottom of a tree that has the most remarkable inhabitants like Moonface, Silky and Dame Washalot living in its branches and a revolving world of magical lands at its top, high in the clouds. That is what Joe, Beth and Frannie (PC'ed from the original Fanny) discover when they move to the countryside and discover that their new house lies next to the Enchanted Wood! And in that wood stands the Magic Faraway Tree where they have so many amazing encounters and adventures.

This collection comprising all three books in the series - The Enchanted Wood, The Magic Faraway Tree and The Folk of the Faraway Tree - is now, once again, on offer to parents, teachers and independent readers to share. Over my 50+ years in teaching, I've lost count of how many children I have shared this magic with. Apart from transporting the children to new worlds of imagination and wonderment, it was my go-to read-aloud when they were ready for a serial that had continuous characters and settings so they were familiar with the background, but still needed a complete story within each session.

There is a reason that Blyton's stories (over 700 books and about 2,000 short stories) have not dated and have sold over 500 million copies and have been translated into other languages more often than any other children's author and remain in print more than 50 years after her death. Apart from being childhood favourites of previous generations and thus handed down through families like fairytales, her imagination gave her readers the wings to fly away from whatever circumstances they were in to a world where anything was possible, anything could happen and usually did. In series like The Magic Faraway Tree, The Famous Five, The Secret Seven, Malory Towers and Noddy, there were no everyday constraints on the characters and they could become heroes in the most mundane of circumstances, resonating with the audience in ways many authors have envied and tried to emulate since.

Visiting a new world every read, this is truly a perfect collection for this year's CBCA Book Week theme of Old Worlds, New Worlds, Other Worlds and because my own grandchildren have had this series on their bookshelves for many years, I know just which family needs this copy to start their tradition.

Barbara Braxton