The Naughtiest Girl in the School by Enid Blyton – for the #1940Club

Title: The Naughtiest Girl in the School
Author: Enid Blyton
Publication: Armada, paperback, 20p. Originally published in 1940.
Genre: School story
Setting: 20th century England

This week, Karen of Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings and Simon of Stuck in a Book are hosting the 1940 Club in which we all read and write about books published in the same year.

Description: Elizabeth Allen is a pretty but spoiled girl of ten who is rude to her governess and disrespectful to her parents. At their wits’ end, her parents decide to send her away to the Whyteleafe School. Furious, Elizabeth vows she will behave so badly the school will send her home. At first, she refuses to make friends, acts abominably, and antagonizes everyone she meets. But Whyteleafe is an unusual school, run primarily by the students in weekly meetings, although Miss Belle and Miss Best are the actual headmistresses. When the students complain about Elizabeth’s tiresome behavior, she is punished by losing everything she likes:

Poor Elizabeth! No money to spend—an early bedtime—no concerts, no dancing, no riding, painting, or music! The little girl sat on her bed and wept. She knew it was all her own fault, but it didn’t make things any better. Oh when, when would she be able to leave this horrid school?

However, Rita the Head Girl and William the Head Boy think Elizabeth is redeemable and treat her with kindness, and so does Joan, a shy girl who cries herself to sleep at night but has become Elizabeth’s friend. Bit by bit, Elizabeth is impressed by the fairness of her peers and the fun that school provides. She begins to love Whyteleafe and buries her pride to say she wants to stay and do her very best to be the type of student that makes the school proud – perhaps one day even serving as a monitor!

My Impression: This is one of the books that turned me into a boarding school story fan at an early age:

“You’ll have to go to school, Elizabeth!” said Mrs. Allen. “I think your governess is quite right. You are spoilt and naughty, and although Daddy and I were going to leave you here with Miss Scott, when we went away, I think it would be better for you to go to school.”

Elizabeth stared at her mother in dismay. What, leave her home? And her pony and her dog? Go and be with a lot of children she would hate! Oh no, she wouldn’t go!

“I’ll be good with Miss Scott,” she said.

“You’ve said that before,” said her mother. “Miss Scott says she can’t stay with you any longer. Elizabeth, is it true that you put earwigs in her bed last night?”

Elizabeth giggled. “Yes,” she said. “Miss Scott is so frightened of them! It’s silly to be afraid of earwigs, isn’t it?”

“It is much sillier to put them into somebody’s bed,” said Mrs. Allen sternly. “You have been spoilt, and you think you can do what you like! You are an only child, and we love you so much, Daddy and I, that I think we have given you too many lovely things, and allowed you too much freedom.”

“Mummy, if you send me to school, I shall be so naughty there that they’ll send me back home again,” said Elizabeth, shaking her curls back. She was a pretty girl with laughing blue eyes and dark brown curls. All her life she had done as she liked. Six governesses had come and gone, but not one of them had been able to make Elizabeth obedient or good-mannered!

I was familiar with Blyton’s Adventure stories (and read one for the 1944 Club), some of which my mother owned as a child and her four children inherited. I found bad-tempered Elizabeth in a shabby hardcover at the Chappaqua, NY library while visiting my grandparents. I loved the description of Whyteleafe School – the meals (There was hot soup first, then beef, carrots, dumplings, onions and potatoes, and then rice pudding and golden syrup), the tuck boxes full of cakes, the cheerful dormitory with blue eiderdowns, the schoolwide meeting where a Head Girl and Head Boy mete out justice, and best of all, the way everyone’s pocket money was pooled so each child got two shillings (which bought a lot more in 1940 than it would now, assuming shillings still existed) weekly.

Of course, Blyton’s work is considered quite problematic now for her “racism, xenophobia and lack of literary merit,” but this book is not offensive and is lots of fun, if predictable. Whyteleafe is based on an actual school called Summerhill, a coed boarding school founded in Suffolk in 1921, well-known for its liberal concepts and which also had a self-governing school meetings structure. Later on, I spent more time with Blyton’s Malory Towers and St. Clare’s books which are aimed at a slightly older audience, and I went on to read many more school stories. Eventually, I preferred books by Clare Mallory, Antonia Forest and others but it’s hard to get over a childhood appreciation of Enid Blyton.

Source: Personal copy. This book has been read so many times the first five chapters had fallen out and I had to find them online.