John SchragI saw a trailer for the upcoming film “The Magic Faraway Tree”, which said it was based on a book series by Enid Blyton. I thought I had read all the Enid Blyton books when I was a kid, but I had never heard of these, so I grabbed one from my library and gave it a quick read.
The antagonist in the novel is a schoolteacher named Dame Slap, who gets her moniker from the fact she slaps the children in her classroom (and anyone else who annoys her). Surprisingly violent for a children’s novel, and I couldn’t imagine that in a modern film.
So I watched the trailer again, and caught it — she’s mentioned once in the trailer, but as “Dame Snap”. (She’s played by Rebecca Ferguson, who played Jessica in the recent Dune films.)
I did some web searching and discovered that Dame Slap was controversial long ago — shortly after the first Faraway Tree book was published in 1939. Later editions of the book renamed her to Dame Snap, and had her just snap/yell at the children, instead of assaulting them physically. I have no idea why the ebook in my library has the original content.
(But the book did bring back memories of my Grade Seven teacher, who was pretty regularly violent. Mostly throwing chalk at kids’ heads, but occasional full-on assaults.)
If you read these books, which version did you get?
Carryl
Ducktape
BicycleBen