What do You think about The Naughtiest Girl In The School (1999)?
Bisa juga dibaca di sini: http://kandangbaca.blogspot.com/2012/...Cewek Paling Badung di Sekolah adalah seri pertama dari empat seri 'Si Badung' karya Enid Blyton. Meski saya tak banyak membaca karya-karya Enid Blyton yang lain (Lima Sekawan, Sapta Siaga, dll), saya termasuk beruntung sempat membaca buku ini waktu kecil.Elizabeth Allen, 11 tahun, berparas manis, kaya, dan manja. Saking manjanya, ia jadi kurang ajar. Kelakuannya sangat nakal. Selama ini ia menjalani homescholling seperti anak-anak kaya lain di Inggris pada masa itu. Nona Scott, guru privat Elizabeth akhirnya tak tahan menghadapi kelakuan nakal Elizabeth dan memutuskan untuk berhenti. Karena kesulitan mencari guru pengganti, orang tua Elizabeth akhirnya memutuskan mengirimnya ke sekolah berasrama: Whyteleafe.Elizabeth tidak suka dengan keputusan orang tuanya. Ia melakukan segala macam cara agar tidak dikirim ke Whyteleafe, mulai dari bertingkah lebih nakal dari biasanya, sampai bersikap sangat manis dan sopan. Sayangnya keputusan orang tuanya sudah bulat. Suka atau tidak suka, Elizabeth tetap harus bersekolah di sana.Namun gadis itu punya rencana sendiri. Ia akan bersikap sangat sangat nakal agar pihak sekolah mengeluarkannya. Di sekolah, ia kerap melanggar peraturan dan selalu bersikap kasar pada teman-temannya, sampai-sampai ia sering mendapat hukuman dan dijauhi teman-temannya. Meski demikian, pihak sekolah tak juga mengeluarkan Elizabeth.Suatu saat Elizabeth bertemu dengan Joan, murid yang pendiam, tak punya teman, dan terlihat sangat tidak bahagia. Pada dasarnya Elizabeth anak yang berhati lembut. Ia jatuh kasihan pada Joan, dan memutuskan untuk menjadi temannya, meski awalnya Joan menolak berteman dengan Elizabeth. Kini Elizabeth berteman akrab dengan Joan, walau hal tersebut tak lantas membuat Elizabeth mengubah keputusannya.Pihak sekolah akhirnya mengambil keputusan bahwa jika sampai tengah semester nanti Elizabeth mampu bersikap baik, maka ia boleh memilih untuk pulang ke rumah atau tetap tinggal di sekolah. Elizabeth menyetujui kesepakatan tersebut. Seiring berjalannya waktu, gadis itu mulai menyukai sekolahnya. banyak hal menyenangkan yang bisa dilakukan. Pelajarannya dan teman-temannya juga ternyata asyik. Bahkan, Elizabeth termasuk anak yang paling pintar di sekolah itu.Elizabet menghadapi dilema. Di satu sisi ia sangat menyukai Whyteleafe, tapi di sini lain ia masih bersikeras keluar dari sekolah itu. Lagi pula, ia sudah terlanjur mengumumkan pada semua orang di Whyteleafe bahwa ia membenci sekolah itu dan tetap ingin pulang.Baca kisah lengkapnya di Cewek Paling Badung di Sekolah. "Bukan begitu. Masalahnya adalah semua orang terlalu menyayangimu," kata Nona Scott. "Kau cantik, periang, kaya raya. Karena itulah semua orang memanjakanmu. Semua menyukai penampilanmu, caramu tersenyum, caramu berpakaian. Semua tak bosan-bosan memujimu, membelamu, menyayangimu. Dan mereka memanjakanmu. Padahal akan lebih baik bila kau diperlakukan seperti anak-anak lainnya saja. Tetapi tak cukup bagi seseorang untuk hanya memiliki wajah cantik dan senyum ceria. Untuk menjadi anak yang baik, kau harus memiliki hati. Hati yang baik." (hlm. 13)Saya pribadi sangat meyukai kisah dalam buku ini. Selain tokoh Elizabeth, tokoh-tokoh lain dalam buku ini juga menarik dan mudah untuk disukai pembaca. Walau buku ini berkisah tentang anak nakal, buku ini sangat aman kok dibaca oleh anak-anak (ya memang buku anak-anak sih, hehehe) karena terdapat banyak pesan moral di dalamnya. Elizabeth sebenarnya anak yang baik dan berhati lembut. Ia gadis yang penuh percaya diri dan teguh pendiriannya. Sayangnya ia terlalu keras kepala. Saya juga jatuh cinta pada Whyteleafe. Saya bahkan berangan-angan bisa bersekolah di sana... sebelum akhirnya saya diperkenalkan pada Hogwarts oleh JK Rowling. :)5/5 bintang untuk buku yang penuh kenangan ini.
—Yovano N.
I first read this in the mid-80s when I was about 8-10 or so and I really liked this series. I also read The Naughtiest Girl Again and The Naughtiest Girl is a Monitor before this, but I recently found out there is a fourth one (and others written by someone else that I probably won't read!).I know it's dated now and unrealistic even then - the children more or less run the school and make all the decisions - but there's something appealing to children about boarding school life where it seems all they do is eat cakes and get spending money to buy sweets, and a world where children make the rules. I think it just appeals to children who are constantly under the control of adults.Reading it now at 34 years old, I got less out of it obviously, but it was nice to go back.
—Hil
The Naughtiest Girl in SchoolI bought a couple of Blyton’s books a couple of years ago because I thought that I might have missed out not having had the chance to read them when I was a child. I never got around to reading them until one Friday afternoon a couple of weeks ago. The books all seem a bit formulaic and I had to constantly remind myself that they were written at a totally different time in a rather different society. Nevertheless I couldn’t shake the conflicting feelings about the book’s premise that girls must behave in an obedient, proper and polite way at all times. My inner feminist was screeching indignantly.I don’t negate that it would be desirable if kids were taught to be polite, because there’s quite a bit of rudeness going around these days. I wonder, though, whether politeness and gentleness can really be “taught” or whether they are rather picked up by mimicking others. I reject the notion of a uniform society, no matter how polite. Being different, being individual should be celebrated in kids as well as in adults.The story of little Elizabeth’s struggle to be naughty and horrid to achieve her goal of being sent home from Whyteleafe Boarding School drew me in despite myself, but it was more of a detached scientific reading, a fascination with a world that no longer exists in the depicted way if ever it did. At first I thought that I wouldn’t be able to get used to the archaic language, but it didn’t bother me that much after a while.I am not really familiar with whole literary sub-genre of boarding school setting, but I always had a soft spot for it, glorifying life at boarding school (I did, obviously, never attend one myself). I only owned one or two books set in the BS environment when I was a kid and I adored them.I seriously doubt the appeal of this book to young children today. There are a few points in its favour:- the need for a best friends to share joy and worry with- the desire to do well in school, to please parents and teachers- the wish to be loved, to be surrounded by the people and objects one loves- the ability to easily adapt to new surroundingsThere are, however, as many points I’d argues make the book inaccessible for today’s youth. Just to mention two:-tthe old-fashioned and dated language-tthe almost tech-free setting (sports, music, painting, and dancing as opposed to video games, internet, mobile phones, etc.). Then again, the Harry Potter books worked fine without technical gadgetry, but they had spells and potions to counter that lack (not to mention, a lot more suspense with the fight of good vs evil and far more action).The whole book is extremely feeling-based. The most important thing is to pass the judgement and gain the appraisal of others.If one were inclined to do so, one could break the entire novel into lessons: -tthe pleasure of sharing as opposed to hoarding everything to oneself-tthe good deed of saying “I’m sorry”-tpride is wrong and will only hurt oneself-tstrength lies within one’s ability to change one’s mindAnd so on and so forth. The almost socialist self-governance of the pupils amused me. Of course, this would only work if the world (or a school) were populated by as perfect role models as portrayed here, who’d never abuse the power given to them, and we all know that the world doesn’t work that way (not even in a boarding school micro cosmos).
—Jana
