This is the first Enid Blyton book I have read,
and I received this book as a gift from a very special friend of mine. Given these facts, I will alert you to the more-likely-than-not
probability that this book is not available in the United States. You may be able to find it at the library,
but you will most likely have to get The
Enchanted Wood from Canada, India, or the United Kingdom (try their
respective Amazon sites, or better yet, try Alibris and Abebooks online, both
of which specialize in rare, hard-to-find books).
Remember those classic books you read as a
child, like Half Magic, Mary Poppins, and
Gone-Away Lake? This book reminds me of all of those and
brought me back to those days of reading truly delightful and innocent stories
by the bundle. Joe, Beth, and Frannie
have moved to the country with their parents.
It is summertime and they spend their days doing their house chores and
exploring the surrounding countryside.
There they discover the Enchanted Wood, the Faraway Tree, and the folk
that live there. The Faraway Tree is
especially exciting because every week or so, if you climb all the way to the
top, a different land is there above the clouds (e.g. Birthday Land and the
Land of Take-What-You-Want, among other whimsically named lands straight out of
my childhood daydreams). If you know a
child (or an adult!) who wants to read a fantasy where nothing scary happens
and everything is wonderfully magical, I sincerely recommend Enid Blyton. As far as I know, a fraction of Blyton’s
books are available in the United States, and I usually find them in independent
or used bookstores. As I mentioned
before, though, consumers can acquire them via online means (also try
independent bookstores’ online storefronts).
Okay, here is the deal: read the
original Jane Eyre by Charlotte
Bronte first before you read April
Lindner’s re-imagining of the story. I
first read Jane Eyre when I was 12
years old, and I LOVED it. It was one of
those days when I was done with all my library books and needed something new
to read, and had to raid my mom’s and dad’s bookcase. I did not have any problems understanding the
language or the plot, and when I read it again a few years later for English
class, I understood what was going on even better the second time. I loved it! In my mind, it's one of the greatest love stories ever told. Jane by
April Linder takes place in the 20th century and substitutes a rock
star for Mr. Rochester (appropriate, I think, since the original Mr. Rochester
is a VIP in his own right) and is pretty much the same story, but for a teenage
audience (15 and up). It’s still a fun book,
though, and what I would call a “beach read”. 
