Reread before giving as a Christmas present. Two main warnings:

1) It is very much of its time - everyone is male, with the exception of a few female humans, and maybe a cow (and the interactions with them are _weird_) [It's probably awful for race and class as well, but I read it more aware of the male/female interactions.]

2) It is... strangely amoral. People are tricking each other and trying to pull the wool over each other's eyes, and there are definitely sometimes _consequences_, but they are usually the consequences of being too _foolish_, not being too _bad_...

That aside, I still enjoyed it, and still wanted to pass it on to the next generation, not to be taken as gospel but to be read and discussed. 'Do anything you want to me, just don't throw me in the briar bush!' - there are still useful things to learn in trickery... ( )

I used to love these as kids. Still enjoyed some aspects. Narrator is amazing, it's perfect to have a comedian reading these stories! I never felt really engaged though. As an adult it's evident I only love some of Blyton's stuff. :( ( )

very readable but Brer Rabbit is a bit of a little shit! ( )

I guess jumping over to a random Enid Blyton book after reading a very heavy book on the Vietnam War doesn't necessarily relax you, particularly if you find the book that you have jumped over to to be complete and utter rubbish. What I have learnt from this experience is that a book that is almost painful to read can be just as hard as a book that confronts you with the horrors of life. In fact I found this book to be so painful that I actually had to put it down for a day before I went back to finishing it. Okay, you may ask, why didn't I simply abandon it? Well, I guess because I really don't like abandoning books, even though I have done so in the past.
This book is a collection of short stories about a group of animals. We have Brer Rabbit, Brer Terrapin (a fresh water turtle), Brer Fox, Brer Wolf, and Brer Bear (I have no idea what this whole brer rubbish is, and that was one of the things that I found really painful to read, as well as the writing style). Anyway Brer Rabbit is a very mischievous and naughty creature that pretty much goes around playing tricks on people and getting away with it. In particular he loves going around and teasing Brer Fox, and most of the book is about how Brer Rabbit is always getting one up on Brer Fox.
Now, what I really and truly hated about this book was simply that Brer Rabbit is not the type of character that I would want anybody to model themselves after. He is deceitful, disrespectful, mischievous, and simply a pain in the butt. He is the type of character that really exists only to make other people's lives a misery. He gets his thrills out of playing tricks and jokes on people, making them incredibly angry, and getting away with it. Not only would I classify him as an antagonist, but he always gets away with his actions. To put it simply, not only is there no justice in the book, and you are supposed to sympathise with this horrible little rabbit.
The only redeeming feature about this book was the story about how Mr Lion went to a restaurant to have some soup, and then said he couldn't eat it. The entire story had the staff running around trying to figure out what was wrong with the soup and why Mr Lion could not eat it. In the end you find out that it was because he didn't have a spoon. A joke, but a joke that one would consider to be groan worthy at best. ( )