Any Noel Streatfeild fans here?

[JFDIYOLO]

I love her books about children on stage, at Madame Fidolia's Academy - have done since I was very young and Mum first handed me Ballet Shoes and The Painted Garden.

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I have her book The Children of Primrose Lane. Set in WW2.

Thank you for this thread. Growing up I loved Ballet Shoes, the Growing Summer and White Boots. I do believe they have a comforting power as others have said. I am delighted to discover that there are books by Noel Streatfield that I haven’t read so I off to investigate.

I loved Ballet Shoes too, and I've read a lot of her adult novels - most are available on kindle quite cheaply, including The Whicharts.
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Has anyone else heard her Desert Island Discs from 1976? It’s a bit of a hoot - here

They were well exercised, with dance classes, then the afternoon walk, then more dance.

Oh my gosh. I forgot all about When The Siren Wailed. I love her books. Love love love them. I think Ballet Shoes & Apple Bough are my faves.

Ballet Shoes for Anna is another good one. It was published just after decimalisation and it amuses me that the characters refer to 'New Pence' which was how the government referred to 'new money' during the period when Streatfeild must have been writing it - but of course this didn't catch on, as the public almost immediately started using 'p' instead.

Is that the one with the casually thieving brother 'because Anna must have shoes'? The one who spurns the cauliflower cheese and says he'll just have some bread and olives, thanks?

Loved Ballet Shoes and The Painted Garden… but Oh! The illustrations! That adorable one with the Fossil sisters making their pact. 😍

I must be getting old, but it seems children’s books nowadays have totally forgettable illustrations. Or they’re all realistic and grim and caricatures.

That's the one - Gussie. Reading as an adult I feel more sympathy for the uncle who is painted as a villain - having three children dumped on him at a moment's notice!

@Kilopascal that's the one. I think they came from Turkey originally? I recall the book begins with an earthquake and how before the quake the birds fled. I liked that one too @RaeHitsEbSire thanks for mentioning it and reminding me.

Gussie, that's it!
Yes, I have some sympathy with the aunt, the uncle and even the dance teacher in that one.

I also love White Boots. Such a lovely story and the characters are great- realistic with flaws and all

They've also got rubbish covers in my opinion - all bright colours and childish cartoon pictures. Growing up, I loved that my Puffins etc. looked like proper books with sober coloured spines and covers with proper illustrations.

There is a really good podcast called Backlisted about books. They did a feature on Ballet Shoes and NS. It might have been one of their Christmas editions last year. Absolutely worth a listen for fans of the books.

The Whicharts is interesting; it's a brutally realistic adult version of Ballet Shoes.
And Saplings - about a family broken by the war.
She also wrote quite a few romances as Susan Scarlett which have been re-published -I wasn't that keen on the couple I read but you might like them.

They are beautiful illustrations . I loved one of Pauline at her audition with long flowing hair all smooth but just a curl at the very end. Another favourite for me was when Pauline and Petrovna are in a play and they are playing too children in their nightclothes kneeling on their window seat looking out of the window. And Posy dancing on the tube station and Pauline and Petrova and Nana are shocked and telling her to stop being so vain! I had a soft spot for Posy, it may have seemed she was a little madam but I believe she actually genuinely knew she was gifted and had that focus and self confidence. It always struck me that the three girls were raised the same but their personalities were so different , proving that nurture is only part of it.

I completely get it about children's illustrations these days,what I especially hate is when illustrators draw characters in a way that doesn't accurately portray the time in which the books are set. I remember some ghastly early 90s editions of Enid Byton 's Mallory Towers , 1940s schoolgirls with long flowing hair sometimes with a bit of layering or feathering at the ends, high legged bathing costumes in the pool, nothing like how 1940s schoolgirls would have dressed or worn their hair! 11 year old me was grinding her teeth at the stupidity of it. I hate the modernisation of old books especially childhood classics. Someone was saying once may be George from the Famous Five was really non binary and I wanted to scream. These are children's books, what's wrong with keeping her as an old fashioned tomboy!

@Thally I must check that out!

@Millybob i love when they show a realistic side to ballet training. I recall Jean Ure doing some brilliant realistic books about this, Nicola Mimosa was one of her older ones and then in the early to mid 90s she did a series of three books called Dancing Dreams about students at a ballet school, and they are brutally honest about the fact that not all girls succeed, one girl turned out to be too curvy for ballet and ends up doing Flamenco dancing instead! Although I remember a character in the Drina books of the 60s (Jean Estoril) becoming too tall to stay on at ballet school.

It wasn't a realistic side to ballet training, more that theatre wasn't respectable and the girls were no better than they 'orter be - I think there was an abortion. it's years since I read it though.

The modern covers look so trashy compared with the lovely original illustrations by NS's sister.

I loved Party Frock about children at the end of the War who put on a pageant and Apple Bough. Could any woman be as vague as the children's mother was in that book?

Now both annoyingly renamed as Party Shoes and Travelling shoes. There were shoes to go with the party frock, but no shoes particularly at all in Apple Bough.

Her books do seem to have one character who is not as talented and gifted as the other children in them. I never realised she was really writing about herself.

Must look out for some of her adult books.

@ShermansSherberts I loved Hi There Supermouse and Nicola Mimosa!

Yes. That awful Rose!!

Someone was saying once may be George from the Famous Five was really non binary and I wanted to scream.

oh please!

These are children's books, what's wrong with keeping her as an old fashioned tomboy! Can't agree more.

But Anne was so wet - I wouldn't mind seeing her modernised.

@ShermansSherberts

It's a fun podcast. They do all sorts of books, very wide ranging Inc high brow stuff and sci-fi and the episode on one of Jilly Cooper's books was great. I like the guests, it's very warm.

I think she understood teenage girls very well. I loved that she wasn't afraid to give her girls tantrums, self doubt and moods at times! Some children's books of her time could be a little priggish in how they portrayed their children

@RaeHitsEbSire did you ever read A Proper Little Nooryeff by Jean ure? And it's sequel You Win Some You Lose Some? Ballet training from a boys perspective. Also very good.

@JFDIYOLO That's in the National Portrait Gallery.