The Adventures of the Wishing-Chair

Do you want distinct characters, rich descriptive writing, emotional involvement and that mix of the fantastic and grounded that makes a story feel truly magical? Then you should look elsewhere because this book has NONE of that :P .

This is Blytons knockoff of E.Nesbits, [b:Five Children and It|45181|Five Children and It (Five Children, #1)|E. Nesbit|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327882197s/45181.jpg|975095] or maybe the sequel the [b:The Phoenix and the Carpet|97090|The Phoenix and the Carpet (Five Children, #2)|E. Nesbit|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327883589s/97090.jpg|1115313].
Blyton does here to children's fiction what [a:Edgar Rice Burroughs|10885|Edgar Rice show more Burroughs|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1207155710p2/10885.jpg] does to adventure fiction. And NO, the fact that this is aimed at kids does not excuse the poorness of the writing.

Now its not without a certain excitement. Bad writers have two advantages over good ones. Firstly is speed, a bad writer can fit as much incident into a couple of pages as a good writer would in a couple of chapters.
Also good writers like good politicians tend to be hampered by logic and reason. A bad writer like a popular politician feels no need for there to be any rules and can throw whatever random nonsense they like into the plot.

Its true that some good books can feel almost as random, [b:Mary Poppins|152380|Mary Poppins (Mary Poppins, #1)|P.L. Travers|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327947805s/152380.jpg|2768848] for example is at least as variable as this, however that randomness is offset by grounded moments that make the weird ones stand out through contrast.

Despite the very short chapters i rarely made it through one fully engaged. The flatness of the characters and mediocrity of the writing making it so hard to care. Literary beige.

The book version of a straight to dvd disney film. As mentally stimulating as an 'Adam Sandler' movie. Narrative horse-tranquilizer. Whenever you start to enjoy it you can actually feel a few more braincells commit hari-kari. Everytime someone praises this book a fairy dies...wait..wait.. i'm sure i've got a few more ;)...
ok i've just realised i'm putting way more effort into finding ways to insult this book than the author did in writing it, so i guess i'll stop :P . show less

This appears to have been written earlier than the Faraway Tree series and Blyton's style in this book seems to be quite different as well. Where the Faraway Tree had stories that covered multiple chapters the Wishing Chair has about one adventure per chapter with the exception of two, one takes up two chapters and the grand finale takes up three. Also, where the adult world occasionally intruded into the world of the Faraway Tree, in that the fairies would come and visit the children in their home, this does not happen in the world of the Wishing Chair. A couple of the adventures do involve the adult world intruding, but they only involved an incident when the Wishing Chair was going to be sold, where it was then moved into the house, show more and the other one involved a missing ring. However, pretty much most of the adventures occur in the play room, and the faerie realm, which appears to be an extension of the play room.
I enjoyed the Faraway Tree quite a lot more: there were more children and there were also more companions with the children. The Wishing Chair only has two children, and a pixie friend which they rescued from the giant. As such there seemed to be a lack of community within the Wishing Chair adventures. Also unlike the Faraway Tree, which occurred in the Enchanted Forest, the adventures of the Wishing Chair occur in Fairyland, which can be reached from the bottom of the garden (or simply by jumping on the wishing chair).
Now, Fairyland being at the bottom of the garden is actually not new to Enid Blyton. This concept has been around for a lot longer, and I suspect comes out of the fairy tales of the 19th, or even 18th century. I suspect it is more of a 19th century phenomena, and would probably have been something that involves a more upper class society. I think of the old industrial housing complexes in London (you can still see quite a lot of them when you look out of the plane as it comes to land at Heathrow). The houses are terraced, however if you look out the back of these houses you will discover that the terraces seem to surround park like structures which are the backyards. Much of this has disappeared with the development of housing complexes, and I suspect that houses like those are more expensive these days.
While the adult world does occasionally intrude, I notice that the children are reminded a number of times that they are forbidden to mention anything about the pixie and Fairyland to the adults. This in a way makes me wonder if all of these adventures occur within the children's imagination. When the adults do intrude the magic is somehow taken away. When the Wishing Chair is taken inside (and the Wishing Chair has a personality of its own, it simply does not talk) it suddenly does not seem to want to fly away, and only does so again once it returns to the playroom.
Something I noticed in the last book of The Faraway Tree series, and particularly in this book, is that the father has vanished. There is no mention of a father in this particular story, only mother. While the Faraway Tree was written during and after the war, there is a good explanation as to why the father vanishes, however this is a pre-war book. Maybe the reason that there does not appear to be a father is because we are looking from the children's view point and most of their time is spent with their mother while father is off at work. However, the children are also clearly pre-school since not once are they mentioned going to school.
This is probably not surprising since school is not a place children tend to have adventures. It is more like a prison that they desire to escape from. We do have schools in the Faraway Tree stories, and it is not a pleasant place to go (it is run by Dame Smack-a-lot), and I guess this can be reflected in the attitudes of the children. However, I think that a good author can turn a school into a place of adventure, and I suspect that it has been done in the past (and even the present). I notice that as the children grow up into teenagers, school tends to present itself more to the forefront in their lives, however it is not a place of learning, but rather a place where they can socialise. show less

The Adventures of the Wishing-Chair, by Enid Blyton, is a children's novel first published in 1937 in which two siblings, Mollie and Peter, acquire a special chair that occasionally grows wings on its legs, at which time it is able to fly anywhere with the children (and their pixie friend Chinky) aboard. Of course, they have silly adventures, mostly in the realms of fantasy creatures, but it's all good fun and a snappy read. I was a bit worried about potential racism in the book because of the era in which it was written, but thankfully there is none (the pixie's name has no anti-Asian associations, it's just the pixie's name). The edition that I found was published in England in 2005 and I'm not sure who the audience would be, as it's show more much too old-fashioned for today's children, but it's an entertaining little read despite that; mildly recommended. show less

WARNING: Contains Spoilers

'Adventures Of The Wishing Chair' by Enid Blyton is inventive. A chair that flies to various magical places is a brilliant idea for young readers who would naturally imagine their own special seats doing the same. Peter and Mollie are very sweet children like most of Blyton's protagonists who seek to buy their mother a birthday present but also can be naughty. Why, they even mistreat the wishing chair so that mother will not think it decent enough to keep it in the house for guests to sit on, otherwise how will they be able to go on adventures if the chair does not remain in their special playroom? When that silly boy makes a face the wind blows the wrong way and magic is needed to remedy the situation and of show more course Chinky the pixie knows exactly what to do! Loce you Blyton and your overuse of the word queer! show less

This was a magical adventure. His books always has a bit of magic that can capture almost every readers hearts

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