...to just not get the MN hullabaloo over Chalet School?

[FredWorms]

I somehow missed it throughout my childhood, despite a wide selection of books regularly thrust in my direction by my book-loving Mother.

I bought the 1st one for DD after seeing everyone on here endlessly blathering on about it and it bored us, tbh. We had a good laugh, did some spiffing accents but not a lot happened. About half way through someone was a bit naughty, I seem to recall, and then we gave up.

Should we persist?

Mine are in my parents' loft and this thread has made me overexcited to get them down again. Bloody loved the Chalet School!

I loved the Chalet School, and I'm 28. But I got to them at about age 12. That helps!

I still read Chalet and Abbey books, they are a lovely escapist read.

I find them good comfort reading. Maybe you should try one or two more?

Not a lot happens in the first one really.

I still remember the one where they escaped from the nazis, and her lovey hair went white. And I remember jo as well, episodes when she met her husband, bullied by the new games teacher, all kinds of things.
Dc a bit young to read them so I tell them out loud in car from what I remember, they like what Katy did too:)

The modern 'update' is absolutely horrible!

Girls Gone By publishers have some and some Abbey stories too. They are nice editions and cheaper than collecting originals.

Of a similar vintage, does "Violet Needham" mean anything to anyone? Her books included "The Black Riders", "The Woods of Windri" , " The House of the Paladin". There are about thirteen others as well. I loved them, still do, and re-read "The Emerald Crown" over Christmas, as it starts with the young heroine watching the snow from her turret window. Very seasonable.

I have a few duplicates I would sell cheaply...
numbers 9,12,45,47 and 60 of the Chalet School series-mainly modern paperbacks except for no 12 Lavender Laughs at the CS which is a 50's hardback.Just pm me if you are interested.
I also have a duplicate copy of The Abbey Girls Again which is a Childrens Press hardback from 1969.
I am lucky to have collected all the Antonia Forest Marlow books which are probably my favourite of all.
Yes I know Violet Needham-the only one I have read is The Woods of Windri and that was years ago.
I do have a lot of old Angela Brazil books too :)

I used to love the Chalet School books although it was often difficult to keep track of the school's ever changing location and huge cast of characters. The girls were a bit prim and proper though and I think a lot of modern children would find them absolutely impossible to relate to. I remember using slang words was a huge crime. Mary Lou et al would die if they got on a bus today and sat beside a bunch of modern teenagers.

I love them but the first is pretty dire! It's quite a mature book for the first in a series about schoolgirls. Some if the later ones, although a bit formulaic, are a better introduction. New girl joins, has trouble settling, makes enemy, Joey intervenes, new girl redeems herself, jolly exciting end of term, best school ever. Coming from MT etc that's much more accessible.

They are definitely more layered than the MT or St Clare books. A lot of earlier characters reappear in later books as adults now sending their own children to the school whereas the Enid Blyton books just focussed totally on the schoolgirls and once the main characters left school the series ended.

When I first read the Chalet School books, as a young teenager, I didn't start with the first one - for some reason, I was bought 'The Wrong Chalet School', which is about a third of the way through, iirc - and I really enjoyed it, so bought myself the first two with my pocket money, and did enjoy those, but nowhere near as much.

Later on, in my twenties, I lodged with a friend who had the full set, so I read it all from start to finish, and that was me, hooked. I now have the full set myself, and it is my favourite comfort reading - but I have to say that I very rarely read the early ones, as I don't really enjoy them.

OP - can I suggest that you get one of the later ones - perhaps one of the ones where they have moved to Switzerland (they start in Austria, move to the UK during the war, via Guernsey, and finally move back to the Tyrol, but in Switzerland not Austria). 'A Leader in the Chalet School' is good, as are 'The Chalet School and Barbara' and 'Mary-Lou of the Chalet School'. They do all stand alone as stories, so you can read them out of sequence like this. Then, if you and your dd like them, you can work backwards and forwards through the series.

The Chalet School and Barbara is one of my favourites too although I started with The School at the Chalet and was immediately hooked.

I like the one with the nasty Matron who locks Robin in a cupboard or something. I also always enjoyed the ones with Tom making a Doll's House for the Christmas sale.

I loved The Wrong Chalet School. Reading it as an adult, I am gobsmacked at the idea of taking my daughter/niece/ward/whatever she was to the station and putting her on a school train that looks as if it might be the right one, even though her name wasn't right on the list of new girls, and then just leaving her to it. As a little girl, though, I thought that was just fantastic.

I think the one with the Robin and the nasty matron is Princess at the Chalet School when Elizaveta comes to the Chalet School and is kidnapped by her evil cousin Cosima. And the Middles set up a society for the suppression of matron.

I read a few as a child, and although I loved Malory Towers, Anne of Green Gables, What Katy Did, etc, I found the Chalet School rather boring and terribly pi

Antonia Fraser just was a much better writer, same basic idea but done better.

...A. Forest

still the books all these boarding school books are really quite outdated IMO

SDTG, thankyou, we'll definitely try one of the later ones.

ZZZ, of course they're outdated. Ludicrously outdated. That's a large part of the appeal, I think.

I have never heard about Chalet School until about 3mins ago, when I clicked on this thread. Can anyone tell me about them? Even my DH had never heard of them/it.

info here

loads of books in the series