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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Ooh, The Wool-Pack! Love that book!

Did anyone else ever read 'The Children Who Lived In A Barn'? It's one of my all-time favourites, even though all I see as an adult are hideous safeguarding failures.

"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!"
I had this very discussion with a (male) colleague the other day, who told me that George was trans! I said that she wasn't, and that was a really sexist and stereotypical way of talking about girls who did not want to be confined to or defined by traditionally feminine roles, and that nowhere did the book or the author suggest that she actually wasn't a girl. It makes me so cross!

This thread has made me feel really emotional and nostalgic. Ballet Shoes was the first book I bought from our school bookshop and the illustrations will live in my mind forever!

I also had a very old copy of Party Frock that was my mum’s.

Such wonderful stories where life isn’t fair and children aren’t always understood (poor Rachel when her mum dies). When the Siren Wailed- I must have taken that home as my reading book every other week!

I remember that, I think! The oldest sister got up at 4am so her helpful neighbour could show her how to do washday, and the villagers were all conspiring to hide them from the social workers.

I remember The Children who Lived in a Barn too. I was always wanting to build dens/clubhouses etc and the idea of living in a barn appealed massively but yes, I agree, a safeguarding nightmare!

The Children Who Lived in a Barn is the one where they make a hay oven. Rereading it as an adult I was horrified by the way their parents go off and leave them!

I literally have a tattoo of Pauline as the Fairy Godmother, from the lovely illustrations by Ruth Gervis (Noel Streatfeild's sister) in Ballet Shoes.

I’m a massive fan and have a whole shelf full, including both British and American versions of curtain up. I think my favourites are white boots, the circus is coming, curtain up and one that doesn’t seem to have been mentioned yet - the bell family.

The Bell Family I think was originally a radio series. It has many of the familiar Streatfeild features : a vicarage family; cute dog; faithful old nanny etc. It’s a very engaging book, but maybe not as well known as some of the others because it does feel like she’s recycling stuff a bit.

Ah what a lovely thread. I'm glad The Bell Family was mentioned, I have a huge soft spot for Miss Virginia Bell. Ballet Shoes was my first and probably closest to my heart but Curtain Up is also a massive favourite.

Someone mentioned Saplings - has anyone read Grass in Piccadilly? I like it, and such an interesting evocation of live in London straight after the war with all the upheavals in society.

One of my favourite Streatfeilds as a child was The Fearless Treasure, a sort of potted history of England told through the eyes of a group of children from different backgrounds who each travel back in time to the past of their families. Not sure how well it would have dated.

@EducatingArti - Barbara Willard’s Mantlemass series is wonderful.

I’ve just finished The Whicharts. Really interesting to see where it does & doesn’t match Ballet Shoes.

Caroline in Lorna Hill's "No Castanets at the Wells" ends up as a flamenco dancer too, although it's just because she's better at that than ballet. She's not too curvy (although she is pudgy as a child)

I have never come across this but I absolutely love the sound of it

Thanks to this thread I've places a big order at Abe Books! I'm looking forward to reading ones that my childhood library didn't stock.

Yes, I enjoyed Grass in Piccadilly.

I’ve posted this before… my first edition copy of Thursday’s Child has a personal inscription from Noel Streatfeild. It belonged to a Kate Neild of Cherington House! 50p from a charity shop.

I supply taught last year. I’d often borrow classroom books to read in the staff room at lunch time. I saw a NS book I’d never heard of - The Children on the Top Floor. Truly terrible. A really lame retread of Ballet Shoes. Unfortunately, I forgot to return it, so it’s currently waiting to be posted back to the school. Although I’m sure they won’t want it.

It is indeed. Sadly they don’t seem to be especially well known now, and I haven’t come across a child who has read them recently. If you know Ashdown Forest well ( as I do) they have a particular resonance.

I absolutely loved the Mantlemass series. I went through a massive historical fiction phase aged 10 to 13 ish

Has anyone read Dance for Two by Jean Ure ? I think she wrote it when she was a teenager herself and it’s one of my favourite ballet stories I think it was possibly published early 60s ? I was a huge fan of ballet fiction when I was little loved the Drina books as well as Ballet Shoes and Sadlers Wells .

One of my favourite Streatfeilds as a child was The Fearless Treasure,

Is this the one where their names matched? So a girl with the surname of [something]thwaite went back to Viking times. I borrowed it from the school library, but don't recall if it was one of Noel Streatfeild's

There was a Cornish writer (late 50s/ early 60s) who had a character called Tamsin. I would love to know who the author was, if anyone can help out.

@Peregrina Yes, that’s the one. She was called Grace Thwaite and came from Yorkshire. I’ll have a think about the Tamsin one.

Did you buy it?

@Charliescat Yes, Dance for Two was published in 1960 when Jean Ure was only 17. She’s still with us and still writing, I think.