White Boots

I always imagined Robin's 'swirled' music to be fairly dire....

DS (8) came home from school one day with 'Five Children and It' as his reading book and now I am reading The Phoenix and the Carpet to him as his bedtime story - and he is loving it! So much so that I might have to hunt down a couple of other Nesbits for him - I remember loving The Enchanted Garden, The Magic City and Wet Magic as well.

Has anyone read The Story of the Amulet? I think it's about the same children as the ones we're reading now and I wondered whether it was any good...

My almost 14-yr-old DD1 still rereads her Noel Streatfeilds over and over. Her favourite is Apple Bough. Mine is White Boots. DD2 likes the Gemma series. She has something for everyone - though none of us really likes Tennis Shoes and Party Frock is stupendously dull.

Agreed Elizabeth Enright's Melendy books are brilliant.

I too adore(d) Noel Streatfield. I was so chuffed when DS was persuaded to read my treasured, battered paperbacks from my childhood when he was 10 or so and wanted what I called a 'cozy read'. As an only I think he really enjoyed the lovely way in which siblings are portrayed in the books. There were never any complaints about not following the stories. I think you mostly can work it out from context. n.b. I introduced him at the same time to the Saturdays, Four-Story-Mistake etc Melendy Quartet by Elizabeth Enright. Wonderful. And so strange to see how children then (I think 1950s East Coast US) were able to roam free. Mind you, so did my husband in late 1960s outer London suburbs .

Oh god. Thanks LaurieMarlow for sending me off to yet another website where I will be tempted to waste vast amounts of time.

Oh her memoirs are great. I still remember the bit where she lives alone and doesn't realise the nice bedsit is in a brothel, until a friend makes her move.

Greythorne as an adult I was shown how to skate a bracket and it took me right back to White Boots. Still like to read it occasionally now.

I loved the Gemma books - sadly so did my little sister and they're battered to the point of destruction after so much affectionate reading. I also loved The Vicarage Family, and there are two more volumes of memoirs - perhaps I should try to reread/read them all this year. I'm trying to collect all the ones I don't have or can't find again.

Persephone reprints one of her books for adults, Saplings, about a family which falls apart during WWII. Very sad, but recommended reading.

Has anyone read The Vicarage Family? It is her autobiography in novel form. Very good indeed, though v sad at the end.

There's a Noel Streatfeild discussion board

I didn't realise she was still alive when I was first starting to enjoy her books

Wiki here. Or that she wrote books under the name Susan Scarlett.

I also liked the Gemma books (although they were admittedly pretty awful )

I loved the Gemma books, in fact ive still got them i think, read them over and over again.

I loved Ballet Shoes and White Boots and read them hundreds of times. Is it too embarrassing to admit to also liking the 'Gemma' books - Lydia who sneaks off to a dancing audition and Robin and his 'swirled' music.

Love, love LOVE Joan Aiken - pure magic. I wanted to be Dido Twite. Noel Streatfield was always a bit of a guilty pleasure especially when I thought I was Too Old for her books.

I've recently been rereading my Nina Bawdens. I have been transported back to the best bits of my childhood.

I do agree that House in Cornwall was not great. Still like Ballet Shoes for Anna though .

Noel Streatfeild's work is so extraordinarily patchy, though - some really fantastic like Ballet Shoes, The Growing Summer, The Bell Family and New Town, Caldicott Place, and then some that are really dire Ballet Shoes for Anna (sorry), and The House in Cornwall which reads like a substandard Blyton.

There is a children's section but it seems to be much more effective to post in the Adult fiction section for all the books you read for your own pleasure.

The only children's Noel Streatfeild I've reread recently is Ballet Shoes but I plan to read the others, maybe when I've completed my Joan Aiken read/reread (there were some books in the Wolves of Willoughby Chase series which came out after I'd allegedly grown up).

I have been rereading a lot of my other old children's books too.

I did not get all the references as a child either, now i think about it, but it seemed to show a bigger, complex world that I wanted to know about.

I adored Midnight is a Place

Reread it last year. It stands up :).

I did - was sitting at the screen going "That's Not Right".

But quite enjoyed it all the same

Petrova is the one who gets the stye on the day of the audition :)

Yes, my dd clearly does not get it all (sovereigns /guineas, Puck's speech, the m'audition thing etc) but she clearly, clearly loves it and is fascinated by it. But then tonight she asked for Mrs Large for her bedtime story, so she covers all literary bases! :)

Did you see the TV version with Victoria Wood? I hated that they changed so much of it.