Tolkien beaten by Enid Blyton!
In a recent poll 1000 adults were asked to name their favourite children’s book when they were growing up. The top spot went to the Famous Five adventure stories by Enid Blyton. Lord of the Rings was placed sixth with The Hobbit in eighth place. You can read the full story at tvnz.co.nz.
7 Comments
WOW! ‘The Famous Five’ beat LotR?!?!!! No way!
At least The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe came in 2nd…
What the heck do people consider children’s books? I can’t really see how LotR is a book for children, even though it does have elves and dwarves and a little bit of magic. The Hobbit is understandable, as it was intended to be a children’s book, but LotR is really a very serious and grown-up book. And Of Mice and Men? That book gave me nightmares for weeks when I read it in high school; it’s full of mature themes and sad events. I want to know how it made it onto this list at all. Granted, 1000 people isn’t a very big group to sample for a poll like this, so you’re bound to get odd results. But Of Mice and Men? What kind of twisted parent would give that to a ten-year-old to read?
I can see how the Famous Five would beat LotR if it was a young children’s poll, but I have never read “Of Mice ad Men” so I don’t have a valid opinion on that matter.
Well, if I was choosing a children’s book, I’d have voted 100% for Famous Five.
I can also comment that Of Mice and Men is a very wierd choice! I read it when I was younger, we had to study it at school. Aged 11. And I think it’s what kept me off all vaguely adult books! I still hang around the children’s section in libraries… Even now, we were offered a choice of 3 books to study, and OMAM was the only one to get 0 votes!
FF deserves to win a children’s book poll, though.
One second…I fail to see how Of Mice and Men is considered a children’s book. And on that note, I don’t know that I really consider LotR a children’s book either. As another comment stated, yes it has Elves and Dwarves and Wizards and Magic and small people with furry feet, but those are hardly a reason to call a book “Children’s Literature.” I personally can’t stand Little Women; it’s rambling and boring. And I know Black Beauty is a classic, but again, I personally don’t care for it. Treasure Island I would think would be a bit difficult to read for children.
All in all, I don’t entirely agree with the placings or even the ingredients for this list. I don’t know which adults they were asking, but several of these books would not have made it on my list!