What was your favourite Noel Streatfeild book?

My absolute fav is Dancing Shoes-with the fabulous Dulcie Pulsie as the villain.

Also also loved Ballet Shoes. Re-read them all endlessly

Was Apple Bough the one where Pauline Fossil meets one of the children in Hollywood?

I still have copies of all of them-some are the American versions and some the English.

I remember my mum handing me a copy of Ballet Shoes when I was about 7-8 like it was something very special. It was my absolute favourite from that point on. I found the Painted Garden at a church jumble sale not long after that and I love that too. I read White Boots when I found it in the school library. Ballet shoes will always be my favourite, it’s my total comfort book.

I've found the earlier Ballet Shoes on YouTube - it dates back further than I though, to 1975.

EastEnders fans might like to know that Petrova is played by Tracey, the non-speaking barmaid in the Queen Vic.

The 'shoe' thing was the American publishers. It's awful, isn't it? It doesn't remotely make sense.

The original film version of Ballet Shoes is a billion times better than the EW version. (I think that is the BBC version actually).

Ballet Shoes is my all time favourite book ever.
I also loved the Gemma series, Apple Bough, Party Frock and the Painted Garden.

I hate how they've renamed so many to make them into a 'shoe' series.

I found the Whicharts a really interesting insight into NSs thinking behind Ballet Shoes. If you read an NS biography, you see how her very difficult relationship with her parents, and her life comes into the books.
My favourite of her childrens books are White Boots and The Circus is Coming, but I do have a full set of her childrens and adult books

There's an 80s version of a BBC Ballet Shoes that's more faithful to the original (with a faintly terrifying Madame Fidolia). That's almost certainly on YouTube.

Ballet Shoes, Ballet Shoes for Anna and also the Gemma books. I liked as Gemma as well and found the cousins (except Lydia?) annoying especially sensible Ann and her lovely voice. Loved the one where Gemma plays Juliet in a university production and falls in love with Romeo

For Ballet Shoes fans, 'The Whicharts' is an interesting read - it's the adult novel Streatfeild recycled to write it.

The BBC drama of Ballet Shoes was excellent. I wonder if you can still watch it?

I must have read Ballet Shoes and White Boots at least once a year until well into my 20s. I'm feeling very silly to learn now (in my 30s) that there are so many other books!

Other than White Boots and Ballet Shoes, I liked 'Ballet Shoes for Anna'.

I wasn't remotely interested in ballet otherwise but the stories gripped me.

I also loved the Gemma books but they felt really different. Maybe because they were so 'modern' compared to the others?

This question has made me really think, and although Ballet Shoes is probably the top one, I do also love White Boots. I read the Painted Garden a lot too, and appreciated The Circus is Coming for the same reason as a PP - it's so very different to Blyton's Galliano's Circus, not patronising or rose tinted at all.

I love all of these. Gemma, Tennis Shoes, and When the Siren Wailed (Blitz) are my favourites after Ballet Shoes.

I read one about Sorrel at school but can't find it now, does anyone know the title(s)?

Be warned though she recycled the same characters through her books e.g. the very handsome and conceited younger child, which is fine, just annoying if you decide to have a Streatfeild binge!

The Painted Garden is the one I remember most.

I did read a good few Streatfeilds as a child but for some reason I never loved her books. I wasn't into the showbiz thing.

Ballet Shoes was my favorite as a child - bliss ! Pauline, Petrova and Posy Fossil , even the names can transport me back to my childhood bedroom where I'd read it over and over.

The first one I ever read of hers was The Children of Primrose Lane, which was written during WW2 and has a fairly standard (for the era) spy-catching plot - though it's less formulaic than most. I was quite surprised when I then came across her other books to find out they were mostly about ballet/ theatre/ etc!

Warning for anyone who looks up The Children of Primrose Lane off the back of this - I re-read it recently and it does have a very offensive word in it! So maybe don't just hand it over to your 9 year old if you come across a copy.

I liked Gemma too - and it was clear Gemma was a product of her spoiled mum, and Aunt Anne (?) was very sympathetic to her.
I was going on to secondary school around that time and there was the same debate about grammar/secondary modern, a relative taught in a secondary modern and I remember the aunt saying she didn't like the comprehensive system because it didn't suit the less highly achieving children either, which was a new perspective to me (my family are very academic and didn't like it for the opposite reason).