The Goblin Hat and other stories by Enid Blyton is a collection of short stories titled The Forgotten Canary, Pockets in His Knees, One Thing Leads to Another, The Goblin Hat, Goofy Posts a Letter, The Runaway Shoes, Away it Went, The Strange Little Boy, Mr. Wibble-Wobble, Oh, You Greedy Dog!, A Peculiar Adventure, He Was a Bit Too Quick, At Rushy Bridge, The Boy Who Cheated and Belinda's Bicycle.
The Forgotten Canary is about a beautiful little canary called Feathers who lived in a cage in a nursery which belonged to a girl named Katie who forgot to look after him. There were days when Katie forgot to clean his cage and give him food and water. Feathers was very unhappy about living in the cage and longed to get out and fend for himself.
Fortunately for Feathers, a little brown sparrow came to visit him the next morning and found that Feathers was not well because he had had no food and water for a long time and thought he was going to die. The kind little sparrow brings Feathers seeds to eat but he does not know how to fetch water for him and decides to tell Chinks the pixie about the canary’s plight. Chinks is very angry and sorry to hear about Feather’s plight and decides to rescue the canary and set him free. Chinks and the sparrow devise a plan to rescue Feathers and paint him brown so that he can live with the sparrows and never be noticed.
Chinks flies in at the nursery window along with the sparrow when no one is there and opens the cage door and sets Feather’s free. Feather’s flies out of the window and Chinks asks him to come to the holly tree where she paints him brown so that Feather’s who is a bright yellow will not be caught again by someone and kept in a cage. Feather’s then joins the sparrows who welcome him and teach him to fend for himself. Feather’s soon learns to fend for himself and is very happy with his new life.
Reviewed by Hannah William