Joan, who would really rather have a puppy than play with dolls, leaves her dollhouse outdoors where the pixies find it, and a pixie called Jinky makes himself very unpopular by playing practical jokes.
Enid Mary Blyton (1897–1968) was an English author of children's books.
Born in South London, Blyton was the eldest of three children, and showed an early interest in music and reading. She was educated at St. Christopher's School, Beckenham, and - having decided not to pursue her music - at Ipswich High School, where she trained as a kindergarten teacher. She taught for five years before her 1924 marriage to editor Hugh Pollock, with whom she had two daughters. This marriage ended in divorce, and Blyton remarried in 1943, to surgeon Kenneth Fraser Darrell Waters. She died in 1968, one year after her second husband.
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.
According to the Index Translationum, Blyton was the fifth most popular author in the world in 2007, coming after Lenin but ahead of Shakespeare.
It appears that, for my daughter, Enid Blyton has now officially outstripped both James Howe and Roald Dahl. I like that her stories use grammar and language that is simple enough for a young child to follow well, and yet somehow not insipid for an adult to read, and they are all full of imagination. I had to read Jinky's Joke twice in one day...and yet it was not at all painful to do.