Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Children's books

Join in for children's book recommendations.

Original poster

Ballet shoes. Noel Streatfeild

204 replies

Orangeanddemons · 29/12/2013 15:53

Wow! It is fantastic isn't it? I'd forgotten how good it was!

Dd got some book vouchers for Christmas. Took her to get some books and found this. I bought it for me, and M reading it again. It wad my best boom ever when I was little, and it's still great now.

This version even has a bow on the cover! Dd hasn't even been able to get near it!

OP posts:
AMuppetChristmasCorral · 29/12/2013 15:55

It's one of my favourites! I'm looking forward to reading it to my boys Grin

tribpot · 29/12/2013 15:57

Great book.

MadameDefarge · 29/12/2013 16:09

I've still got my copy from the seventies...odd to think it was 40 years old even then!

ancientbuchanan · 29/12/2013 16:12

I love it to bits. My copy was pink with the girls outlined in white dancing across.

But it's really v sophisticated, isn't it, about separation and poverty.

Which one did you want to be?

MirandaWest · 29/12/2013 16:14

I love Ballet Shoes :)

Original poster
Orangeanddemons · 29/12/2013 16:14

I used to want to be Pauline, but Petrova is more interesting

OP posts:
MadameDefarge · 29/12/2013 16:14

this is my copy

MadameDefarge · 29/12/2013 16:15

I wanted to dance like Posy, be cool like Petrova and successful like Pauline.

superbagpuss · 29/12/2013 16:15

is this the one about the three girls adopted by the professor?

I was the middle girl more interested in engines Grin. (petrova?)

GirlWithTheDirtyShirt · 29/12/2013 16:16

I love this book, I bought the special edition Cath Kidston version for both my God Daughter's and it's beautiful. I just wish I'd bought another for DD as I can't get it anywhere now.

Original poster
Orangeanddemons · 29/12/2013 16:17

I remember copying one of the pictures in it when I was about 10 and realising that I could draw. It was a bit of a watershed moment

OP posts:
MadameDefarge · 29/12/2013 16:17

yes, that's the one super!

Reread it recently, and it was rather good on kids being old enough to understand not having money, and being responsible.

TerrariaMum · 29/12/2013 16:17

Oh, it is wonderful, isn't it? Bagpuss, yes, Petrova. I think in a later book called Theatre Shoes, she is a well-known pilot.

Original poster
Orangeanddemons · 29/12/2013 16:19

the one I bought. Look at the bow!

OP posts:
ChristmasSocks · 29/12/2013 16:19

Don't stop with ballet shoes, the Author wrote loads, I've read almost all (just read Gemma Alone for the first time yesterday).

I love them.

Original poster
Orangeanddemons · 29/12/2013 16:20

I've read most of them, but can't remember them. Just Ballet Shoes stuck in my mind

OP posts:
MrsSippie · 29/12/2013 16:22

Does anyone remember a book by Noel Streatfield called 'The Painted Garden'? It was about a family who went to America (father a writer struggling with depression who needed sunlight) and ended up meeting the Fossil sisters as the eldest daughter was a ballerina and the middle daughter accidentally got the lead role in 'The Secret Garden' which was being filmed near to where the family were staying? it was so lovely..

PrincessFiorimonde · 29/12/2013 16:23

I loved that book! Reread it a couple of years ago and might hunt it out for another go now.

Terraria, I haven't heard of Theatre Shoes; would like to read that. I did have a follow-up called (I think) The Painted Garden, which is about Pauline in Hollywood, but lost it years back.

PrincessFiorimonde · 29/12/2013 16:26

Oh, xpost, MrsS! I'd forgotten that Painted Garden is really about another family and that Pauline isn't the main character. My excuse is that it must be 40 years since I read it.

RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie · 29/12/2013 16:27

Oh it's gorgeous. One of my v favourite comfort reads. Unfortunately my barbarian dds didn't appreciate it at all.

Petrova is my favourite. I thought my dds would look like her & was v bemused when they didn't (switched at birth, I think).

MrsSippie · 29/12/2013 16:27

I've just ordered it Blush

teacherwith2kids · 29/12/2013 16:33

I still have my childhood copy of Painted Garden.

And a copy of Ballet Shoes that was my mother's (one of the first Puffin books printed) www.penguinfirsteditions.com/Puffin/PS041.jpg

Have re-read many of her books, courtesy of DD.

teacherwith2kids · 29/12/2013 16:35

(Many, btw, have been renamed in the most recent editions. heatre Shoes was, afaik, originally printed as 'Curtain Up', and Circus Shoes was something like 'Here comes the circus'.)

ChristmasSocks · 29/12/2013 16:37

It's only as an adult that I realised the lady doctors were 'a couple'... scroll down for picture...

badreputation.org.uk/2011/01/27/we-three-fossils-in-praise-of-noel-streatfeild/

ChristmasSocks · 29/12/2013 16:39

it's confusing that they rebranded Ice Boots as 'skating shoes', Curtain Up as Theatre Shoes' etc.