Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Children's books

Join in for children's book recommendations.

Original poster

Antonia Forest

88 replies

Fallingovercliffs · 26/11/2014 11:28

For some reason the Marlowe series passed me by as a child. However, in recent months I have managed to buy all four of the Kingscote books (with only Cricket Term costing a slightly eye watering amount) and I cannot believe what I was missing.

They are so realistic you can almost smell the chalkdust and feel the tedium of a long afternoon in a stuffy classroom. The girls, with their shifting friendships and changing group dynamics, are totally believeable and Miss Cromwell has to be the most authentic sounding teacher in any school fiction. I also love the way AF shows teachers and prefects as flawed, human and sometimes prone to favouritism or poor judgment, not the all seeing, all knowing fonts of wisdom they usually are in other fictional schools such as Malory Towers or the Chalet School.

Any other Kingscote fans out there? I've just ordered Sally Hayward's Spring Term and hope it lives up to the work of the original author.

OP posts:
morningtoncrescent62 · 01/12/2014 11:24

I'm rereading Charlotte Sometimes at the moment - a well-loved childhood friend which I haven't read for ages. Emily (aged 10 in 1918) uses the phrase 'snubs to you and utterly squash' which I've always thought of as a peculiarly Marlow turn of phrase. Was it in more general use amongst schoolgirls than I'd realised? Or had Penelope Farmer picked it up from AF?

aJumpedUpPantryBoy · 01/12/2014 11:13

I love these books. DH sourced and bought me a complete set one Christmas - I don't think I stopped reading for a week as I did a complete, back to back reread.
I always reread End of Term at this time of year because I love the description of the carol service in the Minster.

Original poster
Fallingovercliffs · 01/12/2014 10:59

I think Ann would have been very sanctimonious about it and given Ginty a lecture and tried to persuade her to 'confess' to Nicky. But when Ginty refused I think she would have been very sad and sorry about it and left it at that; and always have been that bit of disappointment and disapproval causing a wedge between her and Ginty.
To me that's the difference between Sally Hayward's book and AF's writing (and in fairness SH made it very clear in her introduction she wasn't trying to be another AF but just wanted to explore possible further storylines for the charactes). But AF often knew when to just let something drift, without any resolution and that added a huge level of reality to her books.

OP posts:
hels71 · 01/12/2014 10:24

But Ann's reaction is not ridiculous to Ann. It is exactly how she would have reacted because that is who she was whether is was 1980 or 1950. And I think Ginty had already pushed her luck the term before...

Original poster
Fallingovercliffs · 01/12/2014 10:00

I agree tribpot. The central storyline of the letter would have fitted much better into a 1950s setting. As would the rather prim and innocent conversation on the beach between Ginty and her friends about Patrick. In fact Ann's reaction to finding Ginty reading the letter would have been ridiculous in the 1980s. I think her parents would have been more worried about her over scrupulous moral code than Ginty reading a letter addressed to her sister from a mutual friend.

OP posts:
tribpot · 30/11/2014 22:03

neolara, I think you will still love them. They are proper comfort reading for adults as Hakluyt describes.

Was Spring Term set in the 80s? I seem to recall there were a few comments about Simon Le Bon to anchor it to a period in time. Given Forest's incredibly elastic approach to time, I would have been tempted to set it back in the 1950s where the reading of a letter might seem a terrible breach of trust. Surely in the real 1980s a boarding school would have been dealing with girls having their hair permed and trying to cop off with Prince Charles. Or at least Prince Andrew.

neolara · 30/11/2014 21:33

AF was my absolute favourite author when I was a kid. I read them all many times. I still have most of the school books but I'm scared to reread them in case I don't love them.

Original poster
Fallingovercliffs · 30/11/2014 21:22

I agree. They're so subtle that I think a lot of it would go over the heads of a child. And half the pleasure is seeing the reality in the staff and pupils; on one's perfect, not the staff, the prefects, the popular girls. They're all flawed in different ways. Also a lot of dilemmas or hurts just don't get resolved and remain as part of the baggage people carry on with them through life.

OP posts:
Hakluyt · 30/11/2014 20:45

What I found interesting is that I read them as an adult and loved them. I gave them to dd at what I though was the right age- 12ish, and she found them dull and couldn't see the point. Then she read them again at 16, loved them, and took them all to university with her as comfort reads. I think they are too sophisticated for their target market.

Original poster
Fallingovercliffs · 30/11/2014 20:38

I agree, but Miss Keith making a public announcement after breakfast, everyone talking about it, her friends' horror when they find out etc etc. I think realistically Miss Keith would have politely told Miss Redmond to have some sense. I'm sure there would be far bigger problems to deal with in a large girls' school than one sister reading another sister's letter. AF never presented Miss Keith as an ideal headmistress and it was always clear she had her flaws, but she always did it in a realistic way and this, to me, just didn't ring true.

OP posts:
hels71 · 30/11/2014 20:23

It does say that she was suspended due to the lies rather than the actual letter reading.....I think that it was Rowan who told Nicola that.

Original poster
Fallingovercliffs · 30/11/2014 20:19

I've just read Spring Term and really enjoyed it. However, I don't really think the whole business of the 'reading a private letter' rang very true for a story set in the 1980s. Yes, it wouldn't be condoned but the 'shock horror', headmistress announcing it in front of the school, girl being suspended just seemed OTT to me. Especially when it was between two sisters who shared a bedroom. I also think Ginty's friends totally overreacted in the end. It just wouldn't have been such a big deal at that time.

OP posts:
KatieKaye · 28/11/2014 19:40

I discovered AF at 10 with End of Term and bought Traitor. Couldn't get any of the others till I was 18 and gradually built y collection.
Still a firm fan at 50 and regularly retread.
Spring Term is so good you forget it is not AF!

hels71 · 28/11/2014 18:40

I have also always struggled with the two Elizabethen books, Players Boy and Players and Rebels....must give them another go...

MollyBdenum · 28/11/2014 18:34

I read Ready Made Family quite recently, and it's wonderful. Antonia Forrest really was merciless towards her characters and their flaws.

Toomuchtea · 28/11/2014 14:54

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Hakluyt · 28/11/2014 10:19

The whole point is that you aren't supposed to like everyone. Or even most people. And even the ones you do like bring you up short every now and again. Just like real life.

How can anyone not like Fob? Sad

morningtoncrescent62 · 28/11/2014 08:33

I hated Ready Made Family. I disliked all of the Dodds and Mrs Marlow really grated on me. Of the later books, The Thuggery Affair is probably the one I like best. Once you get past the 'slang' (oh please, what on earth was AF thinking), I rather enjoyed seeing the Marlows through the eyes of people with very different values and expectations. And I just love the way she turns her Thuggery baddies into real, believable people.

tribpot · 27/11/2014 22:43

Amazingly good books - really in a league of their own in terms of the depth and complexity of characterisation in both the children and the adults.

Rowan Marlowe for President!

FobDodd · 27/11/2014 22:39

I started reading them as a child, i picjed some up in libraryb and jumble sales. Then when the 'tinternet was invented and they were republished I bought all I could. I then splurged on one or two on Amazon and now have the full set.

As a child I thoug I was the only person in the world who understood how good they were.

I live near Hampstead and I have been known to wander around trying to work out which was the Marlow/Merick house with the turret.

NotCitrus · 27/11/2014 22:00

Ready Made Family. It's fab and explains a lot of references in Cricket/Attic Term.
Run Away Home is the last book and you feel a bit left hanging after (and its rather a lot of Giles and manliness).

beatricequimby · 27/11/2014 18:42

I read most of them aged about 10 but didn't really get them til my mid teens. The only ones I have never read are Ready Made Family and Run Away Home. If I was to buy one as a Christmas treat, which would you recommend?

hels71 · 27/11/2014 18:07

Peter's room grew on me over time. Part of the reason I dislike the Thuggery is the lack of Nicola.

MirandaWest · 27/11/2014 18:04

I sold the Thuggery Affair Blush. But she did say it was an experiment so I don't feel so bad I couldn't manage it.

Also not great with Peters Room but I preservers every now and again.

hels71 · 27/11/2014 17:59

I struggle with The Thuggery Affair!!

Swipe left for the next trending thread