I grew up on a staple diet of Enid Blytons
Me too - can't explain why they were not popular in the USA, if that's the case. But not everything travels westward well, the British Teletubbies series which is as wierd to an adult as a Dali watch, did well here in the UK but, although it was tried, I saw little evidence of it in the US. Don't know how well The Magic Roundabout worked over there.
To some extent I find the modern 'comic' fantasy writers such as Terry Pratchett, Robert Asprin, Tom Holt, have the same pick-me-up appeal as Enid Blyton.
Incidentally, if you like those guys you MUST try a new writer on the block who calls himself Jasper Fforde (first book is called The Eyre Affair and MUST be read first). To me he seems at least as good as early Tom Holt. Here's one critic's take on it:
"Jasper Fforde tells what happens when bad people visit good literature. Sometimes they change the story or, in the case of Jane Eyre, kidnap Jane and hold her for ransom, leaving Mister Rochester bereft. It is the job of Thursday Next, an operative in the Literary Detective Division of the Special Operations Network in London, to stop literary crimes even if it means she must step into a story to set things right. With the help of her Uncle Mycroft's Prose Portal, through which one can enter the pages of a book, Thursday is able to pursue the villain who holds Jane hostage. Fforde creates a whimsical world with some delightful inventions—bookworms that devour a book and then discuss it, a sarcasm early detection device, translating carbon paper, and lots of literary allusions and puns. This is book lovers' brain candy. (Mary B., Reader's Services)"
