Do children still read Noel Streatfield?

[shreddies]

I'd love to buy my niece Ballet Shoes, but I wonder if it's very dated. Ditto E Nesbit. She's eight and a half and a big reader but I don't want to buy her something that isn't quite right.

I do remember you saying about the Nicola-eske singing. Reminds me I am going to order the GGBP book about Antonia Forest. I have printed out the order form and everything. Now need to refind my chequebook.

HOW DO YOU REMEMBER THESE THINGS YOU FREAKS? didn't you have FRIENDS?

hey, check out little sarah greene...

my hall wasn't the tv one
it was the one the woman who wrote the books did plays in when she were a lass

sorry Idris I am repeating myself I will try to come up with new children's book claims to fame

No the best Blyton books were the Secret ones. Secret Island, Secret of Killimooin, Spiggy Holes, etc . Am currently reading with DS.

The WORST Blyton books were the small children ones - Noddy and the Faraway nonsense with pixies and tout ca.

i too have just re-read Ballet Shoes - on the back of the tv thing being so untrue disappointing.

Want to re-read more now !!

Idris, what a totally divine charming way of doing a new classroom. I am completely sold.

I do hope they had one with a vintage copy of a Just William on it, as that was my reading at nearly 9. Or, as I harp on about, Black Hearts in Battersea.

Do you know, I think that is worth a whole new thread.

PS dd aged 7.5 (going on 23, yesterday she explained that she was aiming for her Easter bonnet to have texture) loves Ballet Shoes. Hasn't read E Nesbit yet but is ripely ready for Five Children and It.

BLACK HEARTS IN BATTERSEA!!!! Oh, that is the best book ever

Thanks cmot... there are conferences on these books???
Oh god Apple Bough... was that the one with Wolfgang et al... superb. And while we're on thie subject, does anyone else love Frances Hodgson Burnett's A little princess? I certainly do. It's so fab being a girl sometimes!

RE Ballet Shoes - thought Pevensey Bay was the most exotic place in the world. It figured in a few of my stories around the age of 9/10.

Didn't get out much me!

which was the Noel Streatfield book where they all sang 'We're going to Torwothy, Torwothey, etc'? I am sooo in the swish of the curtain gang, am too jealous of your hall Franny & Z!
And I agree no19 re Blyton... the boarding school ones were surely the best. let's face it, they pissed on Noddy, no?

I loved Applebough so much I wanted to call a future son Wolfgang. But I also liked Toseland from the Green Knowe books (Tolly for short ). DS actually has a very normal name.

Monkey - yes, loads of otherwise seemingly sensible get together to talk about them. Conferences can range from the very serious academic type, through the ones where they have midnight feasts etc

Theres a very comprehensive site about NS here

Have you been to Lucy Bostons house Shreddies ? It is amazing - I even got to hold Tobys mouse, as its private tours only (you just ring up in advance). You can see how much she based Green Knowe on it.

What?!?! NO! Where is it?

I'm going to calm down now. I'd love to do that - I had no idea you could

This will either be the most fascinating piece of information in the world to you, or leave you cold:

There is another book in the What Katy Did series.

It is called Clover and has been out of print for years. I have never read it and would lavish gifts and love upon the person who finds it for me. I have searched the web etc in the normal way.

Sorry very off topic there.

I have also got Noel Streatfeild's First Book of the Ballet (with diagrams of the foot and arm positions, etc) and The Years of Grace (compendium / anthology she edited)

see this is where i regretfully depart these threads. you're all too fucked in the head hardcore for me.

Oh my god, NO19, that is the most fascinating info... I can hardly bear it, seriously! I love Clover so much that I wanted her name for dd but was sadly vetoed (by everybody). And don't even get me started on anne of green gables!
Thanks for the excellent NS link cmot. And thanks to all for the Antonia Forest tip - had never even heard of her and now have a whole new author to discover.
Has anyone else read any Angela Brazil? Quite lame stories but such gorgeous booksleeves (shallow, sorry!).

Not off topic at all, was thinking about specialist book search agencies, but they are very expensive I think.

Oh.

Have just realised with terrible pang why I cannot be Petrova, and it's not because Aitch grabbed her first.

It's because I am stuck forever being Vicky from A Vicarage Family.

Miranda was one of my shortlisted names for DD1...it wasn't on DH's at all

Big compromises in order.

I loved Pauline's neat little feet in all the drawings (not having neat feet meself)

Green Knowe - I almost don't want to go there - I'd rather have just my image.

I only read The Children of Green Knowe recently - didn't know it as a child - and it has done enduring spine-shivers - happy ones. It hits a unique nerve.

Do you know LB's Castle of Yew - a much shorter book, more for, say, 6 year old boys? I did know, and love, that.

I can still remember getting a shiver down my spine when I read the last line of the Vicarage Family - her cousin Richard has been killed in WW1.