The Adventures of the Wishing Chair

Product Information

Its true that some good books can feel almost as random, Mary Poppins 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. The trade name of "Meccano" is used in one chapter and it's noteworthy to the extent that one can reflect a little on the period during which the book was written. Enid Blyton one of the worlds most translated authors and probably the largest selling children's author of all time. There are so many possibilities for adventure and conflict in the Wishing-Chair setting that the children and Chinky do not really need a mischievous or silly outsider to accompany them on their travels although at least one makes an appearance — Thomas, but he doesn't get to go with Peter and Chinky when they whisk away in the chair to get help for his unpleasant-looking face!

The Wishing-Chair Again came out in 1950 after it was serialised in the Sunny Stories magazine about a year earlier. That's over ten years after the first book ( Adventures of the Wishing Chair) was published. The first book about Mollie, Peter and the Wishing-Chair, The Adventures of the Wishing-Chair, was published in 1937. It contained 36 chapters that had originally been serialised in Sunny Stories magazine during that year. In 1939 a new edition came out, reduced to 31 chapters. Editions from 1963 to 1968 had 27 chapters and the current edition has 26. In 1950 a second book, The Wishing-Chair Again, was published, having been serialised in Sunny Stories the previous year. In 2000, a new collection entitled More Wishing-Chair Stories was published, containing some of the removed chapters from the original edition of The Adventures of the Wishing-Chair as well as additional Wishing-Chair stories from Sunny Stories and the 1952 Enid Blyton Omnibus. In her foreword, Enid Blyton comments on the hundreds of letters she received when the Wishing-Chair tales came to an end in the original Sunny Stories magazine which she edited and wrote. The children wanted more and they wished that all the tales could be put into one book and that's not surprising because magazines are often missed which means that serial-stories can become quite disjointed. Including a feature-length adaptation of Enid Blyton’s The Adventures of The Wishing Chair, this Tonie is perfect for long journeys and chapter-by-chapter listening.

Customer reviews

While visiting a giant's castle, Peter and Mollie rescue a pixie named Chinky. He comes to live in the playroom at the bottom of the children's garden, where they keep the wishing-chair, and he is able to alert them whenever the chair grows its wings and is ready to whisk them off on yet another fantastic adventure. An animated series, Enid Blyton's Enchanted Lands, based on stories from The Wishing Chair and The Faraway Tree series was broadcast in 1997 and 1998. A selection of episodes, "The Ho Ho Wizard", "The Grabbit Gnomes", "Poor Lost Jigs", "The Land of Dreams", "The Disappearing Islands", "The Magician's Party" and "The Chair Clowns About" were later released on VHS and DVD. The complete series was later released on VHS in 1999 on 2 separate tapes with 6 other episodes added which included: "The Invisible Chair", "The Great Escape", "The Snoogle", "The Slipperies", "The Land of Goodies" and "Mr Spells and the Wandering Castle". The voice cast were: Richard Pearce, Julia Harrison-Jones, Mark Channon, Nigel Pelgram, Adrienne Posta and David Holt.

Including a feature-length adaptation of Enid Blyton’s The Adventures of The Wishing Chair, this Tonie is perfect for long journeys and chapter-by-chapter listening This book will provide you a dose of healthy nostalgia and remind most fans about the joys of earlier generations and the books. Enid Blyton is a legend and a brilliant story writer. Blyton does here to children's fiction what Edgar Rice Burroughs does to adventure fiction. And NO, the fact that this is aimed at kids does not excuse the poorness of the writing.It's just- there is something so wonderfully imaginative about all of the places and people that are there in these books? The strange lands and the ridiculously quirky characters are a constant source of entertainment simply because they are so very weird. I mean yes, of course the conflicts are simplistic and the antagonists are not too bright but that's not what I'm here for. I'm here for the worldbuilding. Enid Blyton was the first all-text no-pictures author I ever read. Two decades worth of evolved tastes and increasing cynicism have washed away most of my delight, but I continue to retain a lot of fondness for her fantasy stories.

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 . 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. The Wishing-Chair is a series of two novels by the English author Enid Blyton, and a third book published in 2000 compiled from Blyton's short stories. The three children's stories are as follows: Throughout the book they all have the desire to visit the Land of Goodness-Knows-Where for some reason or another but despite many attempts they never actually get there. Later copies of Adventures of the Wishing-Chair were abridged then in further editions some chapters were restored and some left out so if you want to read them all try searching for The Wishing Chair Collection or More Wishing-Chair Tales and add them to your reprints — although you may not end up with all the Hilda McGavin illustrations.

Wishing-Chair

In this final book, Mollie and Peter are home for the half-term holiday and Chinky (or Binky) and the Wishing-Chair are ready to fly away with them to magical lands. They visit the Land of Wishes, the Land of Scally-Wags and help Santa Claus deliver presents on Christmas Eve. And admittedly it's not very scientific worldbuilding. It's not going to stand up to close scrutiny or examination and the rules are nonexistent but you try and tell me that Land of Dreams sequence wasn't a chaotic delight. Mollie and Peter have saved some money and plan to go to buy their mother a birthday present and as they say ........ Holy-moly... they discover a chair or vice versa, which can fly...