Adventures of the Wishing Chair Chapters 5-10

We continue on with our adventures with the wishing chair. I will be covering more chapters this time than last time. I am trying to bunch together roughly half an hour's worth of reading in every post

Chapter 5: Poor Lost Chinky

The children are on one of their usual jaunts on the wishing chair when Chinky falls off. They meet some little round  magical folks carrying bundles on their heads. They inquire about Chinky's whereabouts. After some rude humor, they always get a response regarding the falling of a snow flake off the sky. They finally make it to the town of these round folks and announce a prize through the town crier. Again everyone brings information regarding the very same falling snowflake. The children are puzzled and disappointed. But the town folk start to get angry on not receiving their reward and the children have to flee on the wishing chair. They return home to find Chinky waiting there. It turns out the snow flake the townsfolk spoke about was indeed Chinky after all. He had apparently turned himself into one to make his way safely to the ground and had had then turned back to his original form and made his way home.

Chapter 6: The Land of Dreams

The children ask the chair to take them where it wishes and they are taken to this strange land. They go to a shop to buy chocolates. When they open their bag of chocolates, the chocolates have turned into peas. Meanwhile the wishing chair turns into a dog. They try to hold on to the dog when a clown approaches them calling them thieves trying to steal the dog. Then the clown turns into a policeman and tries to arrest them on for stealing a dog. But they no longer have a dog - what they have is a duck. Soon the duck turns into an ice cream and melts away. The children are left stranded. They find the peas meanwhile have changes into balloons. Chinky and Mollie try to blow air into balloons and instead turn into balloons themselves. Peter is left holding balloons. He slumps down dejected on to a rocking chair which in turn changes into a rocking horse where he falls asleep. He wakes up to find himself back in his home where everything is back to normal.

Chapter 7: The Runaway Chair

One day they find Chinky fast asleep and they are unable to wake him despite all their attempts. While they are figuring if they can get the chair to fly them to the fairies seeking help, the chair flies away on its own accord. A goblin emerges claiming he had put a spell on Chinky and had meant to steal the chair but it had flown away. He would now pursue it. As he leaves, he warns the children that if they don't manage to wake Chinky within the next twelve hours, he would just disappear. While they are pondering what to do, the chair returns with a gnome seated on it. The gnome manages to awaken Chinky just at the nick of the time given them by the goblin.

Chapter 8: The Lost Cat

One day the chair flies away with their cat Whiskers resting on it. Chinky tells them black cats are sought after by witches to keep as their familiars and it might not be safer for Whiskers to be travelling to magical lands. And when the chair returns, indeed there is no cat.  Chinky summons his pixie friends to locate Whiskers. They perform magic and find the cat's location - the home of the powerful witch Kirri-Kirri.

Chapter 9: The Witch Kirri-Kirri

The chair does not oblige them by growing wings. So this time they use another entry point into the land of magic - a magical train. The entrance to the train station is through a hole in a tree trunk. They reach the station where Kirri-Kirri's home is located. They stealthily approach and make noises in her garden. Kirri-Kirri thinks it is mice and sends Whiskers after them. The children him and flee. But unfortunately Peter stumbles on some bushes and Kirri-Kirri is alerted of their presence. She casts a spell to prevent them from leaving through the gate. But as they wait through the night, the wishing chair appears out of nowhere and rescues them.

Chapter 10: The Disappearing Island

Once again the children ask the chair to take them to a new land. It takes them to a beautiful island. But Chinky warns them not to embark upon the land as it can suddenly disappear taking whoever is on it with them. But Molly disregards the advice and has the chair land on the island. Just before the chair can land the island disappears and the children drop into the sea. Chinky is able to pull them up into the chair. But the chair's wings are soaked and it is not able to fly. A merman emerges and offers to rescue them for a fee. Thus they are rescued and they return home promising to send the Merman his money.

TF Cathick's Response

 Enid Blyton knows how to keep a story interesting. Just when the formulaic approach to each chapter starts to get monotonous, she changes the approach.

The story of Chinky getting lost is just a tale of comical misunderstanding with self resolution with no effort on the part of Chinky or the children. The land of these round little folks carrying bundles seemed quite interesting and I would have liked to see more of it.

The Land of Dreams seems to be a favorite with Enid Blyton's. It is  kind of reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland where all kinds of crazy things happens. This land makes its appearance in the Magic Faraway Tree series as well and in one of her standalone short stories. Here the land seems merely whimsical compared to its appearance in the Magic Faraway Tree series where it is feels much more sinister with a cunning Sandman lurking around to trap visitors eternally in this land.

Then we have a slightly more complex and longer adventure spanning across two chapters. The resolution is a kind of cop out though with the chair conveniently coming to their rescue in the end.

The disappearing island again is a simple adventure with the interesting aspects being the introduction of the magical island and the merman.

Ten chapter in, it is confirmed that this book is indeed for a much younger audience. Apparently this book is Enid Blyton's first full length novel. Which also shows why she opted for a episodic story which is much easier kind of story for a beginner writer to write. The characters here also lack the memorable traits of some of the children in Magic Faraway tree as well as the fairy characters Moonface, Silky and the Saucepan Man. Things are kept much simpler.

From a story creation perspective I find the introduction of the character of Chinky interesting. Without a fairy companion accompanying them, it would be much harder for the children to figure out the various magical lands. Though one does wonder how one being can know about all these various lands and the people that reside there In a work for older audience, the whole experience of discovering alien lands can be brought to life with all its challenges, giving the reader a really interesting immersive experience.  But for younger audience I guess just a series of interesting events is good enough.