The Adventures of the Wishing Chair

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Over the course of the books they travel to all kinds of weird and wonderful places — the Land of Dreams, the Village of Slipperies, Mister Grim's School for Bad Brownies, the Land of Goodies and many others, meeting characters like the Grabbit Gnomes, Witch Kirri-Kirri, the Snoogle, Mr. Spells and Winks the brownie. Enid Blyton used some of the same lands in her Faraway Tree series. Blyton was a prolific author of children's books, who penned an estimated 800 books over about 40 years. Her stories were often either children's adventure and mystery stories, or fantasies involving magic. Notable series include: The Famous Five, The Secret Seven, The Five Find-Outers, Noddy, The Wishing Chair, Mallory Towers, and St. Clare's. Throughout childhood I had the recurring image of a wonderful Titbit Dish. Every time you lift the lid there is a titbit there — a sausage, a bar of chocolate, an orange or even an ice-cream. Like all children I could never get as many sweets and goodies that I required and I used to think about that little dish which Peter owned. What a wonderful possession it would be — then at the end of this book he gives it away to a naughty brownie. What a waste of such a desirable item! Unlike the first book, which was more a collection of short stories, the structure of this book is more like the Faraway Tree where there are a small number of adventures with the final adventure being a journey to light-hearted place (the Island of Surprises). It is also interesting that while the two children begin by looking for the land of Goodness Knows Where, they never actually arrive because they end up being distracted in their journey. Another interesting aspect is that the children are now at school so the entire adventure occurs during their long holiday (in Australia it would be the summer holidays in December and January but I am unsure how things work in England). 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!

I don't know how many times I read this book as a child but I loved it! I was forever trying to drag chairs out into the garden to use as my wishing chair, which enraged my mum on a daily basis one summer! I grew up on Enid Blyton books but I don't remember too much about this series other than the characters, rich kids Mollie and Peter who have their own playroom at the bottom of the garden, a houseproud mother and a servant called Jane. One day they visit an antique shop to buy a present for Mother and get involved in a strange adventure where they steal a flying Wishing Chair from the wizard shop owner and take it home. Each time the chair grows wings, it is time for a new adventure, and as a kid I just loved the different places and people that they met on their travels. 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 listeningLater 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.

Peter and Mollie arrive home from school where Chinky joins up with them and they're ready for more adventures. On their first visitation to a strange land they meet Chinky's cousin "Sleep-Alone." He's a rather anti-social type who just wishes to get away from everyone and everything so that he can have a decent sleep but, unfortunately, he's always disturbed no matter where he is and Peter, Mollie and Chinky play their part in his interrupted life. The adventure moves on and a problem arises when their wonderful chair is stolen so naturally there's an all-out hunt for it and this is where they become involved with Mr. Spells — an Enchanter. After a rather unpleasant introduction they eventually make friends with him and later on in the book Mollie and Peter seem able to visit Mr. Spells whenever they like which is a little unusual because when entering magical places there's generally a need to be accompanied by one of the in-folk such as a fairy or pixie. 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 . Mollie and Peter, searching for a birthday present for their mother, find a mysterious antiques shop which appears to be run by fairy folk. There, they find a magic Wishing-Chair with the power to grow wings and fly. After the chair rescues them from the shop, and gets them home, they decide to keep the chair in their playroom. On their first adventure, they rescue a pixie called Chinky (renamed to Binky in revised editions and Jigs in the TV series) [1] from a giant. The pixie comes to live in their playroom, and the remainder of the book concerns the adventures of the children, as the chair takes them, and Chinky (later named Binky) to various magical places.According to the Index Translationum, Blyton was the fifth most popular author in the world in 2007, coming after Lenin but ahead of Shakespeare.

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. 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:The first book, Adventures of the Wishing-Chair, has the distinction of being Enid Blyton's first full-length novel — although it is episodic in nature. A TV series was made in 1998 as part of Enid Blytons Enchanted Lands. Peter and Mollie are great leads, and hopefully they return in the sequel. I may read some other books in the collection including the Faraway Tree series, however, I don't own too many. Even though the story is well paced and the subtle pictures offer a great image in your head, I feel this book is really a four star. I gave it five because of the powerful little thing, nostalgia! 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. 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 ;)... 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.

Wishing-Chair Books, Stories and Games

You will come across Giant Small-One in this book ... yes, a small giant! There's also a house-keeping cat and even flying dogs so there's variety aplenty that can be added to the various snippets already mentioned. This book follows on from the first Wishing Chair book and Blyton's storytelling ability has certainly begun to advance by this stage. However, I have also noticed that there is a gap of about 27 years between these two books. During this time she had written the three Faraway Tree books, so it is not surprising that as we read this story we discover references to the Faraway Tree and some of the magical lands therein. We also meet one of the Gollywogs which suggests that Blyton, in a way, is weaving all of her fairy tale books into one world. 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. 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.