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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   2918 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 16, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I recently asked ChatGPT what the most recent global children's literature phenomenon before Harry Potter was. Surely someone must've written something since the Narnia books. It confidently said Matilda and refused to budge even when I told him I had no fucking clue who Matilda was.

Anyway, this Friday I found myself on a long bus trip with only a phone to keep me company and I decided to see what it was all about. And, oh boy, was I not impressed. Is everything by Roald Dahl as bad as Matilda? I wouldn't read this trash to my child if you paid me. The last book I inadvertently read that was equally terrible was The Girl that Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson.

To answer your question more directly, Enid Blyton was to my mother's generation what JK Rowling was to mine. Many of her books were like the British equivalent of the American Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew novels, in which a group of intrepid children (the Famous Five, the Secret Seven) would go on adventures and solve mysteries together. She also wrote numerous standalone children's novels featuring anthropomorphic animals or kitchen-sink realism. Her books were very much products of their time, and like Dahl have been hit with the interminable woke debates over whether they're too "offensive" for modern children. (Oh no, a character is called "Fatty"! Burn the lot!)

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