The Put-Em-Rights (Hardcover)

In order to try to put these social problems right, the children form a band called the "Put-Em-Rights". The children obviously come from the upper class within the village: Sally's mother, for example, is a very efficient schoolteacher who also seems to run the village's affairs; Micky's and Amanda's father is the local rector; and Podge's father is a wealthy landlord in the village. In forming the band, the children are joined, slightly under sufferance, by Bobby Jones, one of the children from the poorer district, who seems to be mainly motivated by snobbish kudos to be had by been seen doing good works with the upper-class children. The others try to be kind to him, but this difference in background does contribute to the tension which simmers through the story.

While the children do end up having a positive effect on these various people they are trying to help, it turns out that quite a bit needs to be put right with the children themselves, and it is a rather chastening lesson to learn.

It is a strange book, in my opinion, not quite like any other Blyton work; it would be interesting to know what inspired it. While it is recognizably in Blyton's style, its theme is not quite Blytonish to me. While I enjoyed it, I also found it vaguely depressing in a way I could not quite identify: perhaps the cause of this was the children's poking into a shadowy world of "hateful grown-up secrets" - a phrase Blyton herself wrote in another of her novels. This novel certainly depicts a world quite different from the childhood innocence Blyton usually likes to depict.

Some of her other "family-type" stories depict the seamier side of that adult world, too: for instance, the Six Cousins books (Rose Longfield's quite pathetic inability to adapt to her new situation after her house has burned down and she has lost her wealth), "The Six Bad Boys" (the various attitudes of Bob Kent's and Tom Berkeley's parents to their sons' slide into delinquency), and "The Family at Red-Roofs" (the gossip and tale-bearing of Prudence's aunt Mrs. Lacy, for whom Molly works briefly as a babysitter (so-called "governess") - and, even worse, her gloating over her sister's disaster).

However, on the whole, these glimpses of the adult world are rather in the background, the cosy middle-class children's world still being at the centre, forming the main model of what life is all about, from which those glimpses at adulthood are deviations. But "The Put-Em-Rights" seemed to put the innocence in the background and centres around that adult world, albeit from the children's viewpoint; here, this is the mainstream of what life is about. I found the world of "The Put-Em-Rights" inherently to be a much less sunny place than in most of Blyton's other novels - but probably a more realistic place.

I found slightly depressing the general pall cast over the whole book by the atmosphere of small-town narrowness, scandal, and gossip. This is not a village I would eagerly anticipate visiting, would hate to live in, and it is quite a contrast from the idyllic, friendly atmosphere Blyton usually attributes to country towns, such as in the Famous Five, where life seems so pleasant I almost long to visit these villages along with the Five themselves as they go cycling or hiking from village to farm, farm to village. "The Put-Em-Rights" inhabits a totally different world; it would probably make a very good take-off point for a domestic-type T.V. soap opera.

I think one of the things I didn't like about the book is the deep division between social classes that it depicts, and the way it suggests that those divisions can't be breached, and one really shouldn't even try to. Thus Sally Wilson, the bossy daughter of the bossy schoolteacher; Micky and Amanda, the Rectory children; and Podge and Yolande, obviously from a wealthy background - form a kind of elite or clique, and the implication is clear that Bobby Jones, coming from a poor family with skeletons hidden in the cupboard, has no business even trying to be friends with them. I find that in the end a rather depressing outlook.

If I had written the book, I probably would have taken a less accepting attitude towards this; I might have depicted it, but might have had some character vigorously challenge this outlook. But Blyton's book can probably be vindicated by observing that it is no doubt quite realistic about such matters - or was in its time: I would hope that since then we have made at least some slight progress towards a more accepting attitude about people from other backgrounds or social classes.