Just re-read Ballet Shoes as an adult

[heron98]

Someone answer me this - if they are so poor they can't even afford new clothes, why don't they get rid of the flipping cook and the maid? Why doesn't Garnie get a job instead of staying up all night stressing about money?

Gutenberg won''t work on a Kindle , will it? I am trying to stock up for two weeks on a beach in December, so might need to invest the 99p.

Thank you very much for the eugenic information, I shall look up Kalikak .

Gutenberg project has a "download for kindle" button

(that was not the book you wanted, just the first book that came up under "most popular" for illustration)

Thanks, Trills, it won't download at the moment but I will keep trying.
Orlando, I have read the Wikepedia article. Yes, foetal alcohol syndrome was, understandably, missed, also the effects of an inadequate diet. How horrifying that a sit-com was made depicting Kallikaks.

Sorry for changing your sex, Orlanda.

Thanks to this thread, I have two lovely new books and another yet to arrive. I'm so happy!

Hi folks

We're going to move this thread over to our Children's Books topic in a mo

Loving this thread and bringing back so many memories of Cynthia Harnett, Jean Webster, I Capture the Castle, Prisoner of Zenda etc etc. has anyone mentioned the Lorna Hill Sadlers Wells ballet books which I loved? Also the Sue Barton nursing series? I am almost through the Narnia books with my two boys (on Silver Chair) and am thinking Violet Needham next, perhaps staring gently with The Horn of Merlyns. Also someone unthread mentioned Ferdinand the Bull which I and my children all loved as well!

Alice, brilliant, hope OP ok with that, but so much on here mustn't get lost..

ilovevenice I read loads of the Sue Barton books as a girl, and have collected some of them in the past few years.

I was disappointed when nurse training wasn't like the Sue Barton books, Bloodybridget. I have the full set, but haven't read them recently.

I loved Sue Barton! I also had a collection of Cherry Ames books, who was sort of a US equivalent

Reported that spam!

Granny did take on three foster children which is certainly work, plus take in lodgers so she did try. Also she was thankful that the girls got an education that would enable them to support themselves. DH's family had a sort of nanna/cleaner when he was little. She would have been lost without them- they were all the family she had.
Loved those books, agree about the shop in White Boots and why did anyone marry Awful Aunt Claudia!

Ferdinand was me.. I love the illustrations. It was banned in Spain till after Franco's death, Hitler ordered it to be burned and at least one US newspaper thought it corrupted youf. I love it. I'm so with Ferdinand. I love the cork oak trees, no alas not nearly so much used...

There was a book I read long ago about a little girl at a Russian boarding school, it was called Masha. There was a wonderful Christmas described, and somewhere there exists a sequel. It is quite a rare book, and I had to sell the copy I had when I was needing some money, but has anyone read it or better still, the sequel? Would love to know what happened.

I have read it - it's by MM Kaye, I think!

Yes I've read it, Masha by Mara Kay. The sequel is either Circling Star or Lady In Waiting.

Sorry - it's Mara Kaye - Masha.

Yes, I read Masha, and the sequel about the Decembrist rebellion. They were excellent! I just checked and the author was Mara Kayak.

Kay! Damn you autocorrect.

Thank you all! I have just found it, and amazingly there is a new pb reprint. (Christmas list!) It went the way of all my hb Chalet Schools which I still miss.
This is a lovely thread. I think you would all like Masha and a book by Kitty Barnes called She Shall Have Music.
I wonder if there are such lovely childrens books anymore. Such peaceful ones!

DH just bought me both!

Masha and The Youngest Lady in Waiting, about the Decembrists. I'd forgotten how many of the Russian aristocracy weren't actually Russian, including the Tsars/Tsarinas.

Charlotte Sometimes, anyone?
And still she wished for company...v weird
And of course Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little
And the Miss Bianca books.

The Ransomes but also Follyfoot farm stories?

So many books i loved growing up on this thread!

STDG your small children marriage might have been one of the Mantlemass series, I'm sure I remember a small children wedding/ betrothal recalled in one of them.