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.

She was so good at the details, I think that is why. I loved A Growing Summer, despite the awful run-away boy subplot. Aunt Dymphna was such a character to introduce to children, questioning all their values. And Kerry sounded so lovely. I think that book, and Ballet Shoes and The Circus is Coming were the best she wrote. So is Kerry still like that no19?

It's the focus on those difficult middle girls surrounded by multi-talented siblings who make the stories so good, I think. I was never into ballet or theatre but could relate to those stroppy middle-child-of-three girls who prefer car maintenance to ballet. And dd2, my middle child, perhaps can relate to it as as well.

we watched ballet shoes last week (taped from xmas) and my dd loved it but previously she has struggled with apple bough. she does love e nesbit so i think she's used to thattype of book. i love all those books, for her birthday she is getting 'little women' - she is 9 but reading age is 13 or so i think

we used to play little women as a child as i was one of 4 girls but i always had to die as i was beth...

As far as I remember it was set in Cork, around Skibberreen / Bantry. The beach was Reenmore, which is real. There was a film of it, I can't remember who was in it but there was a still on the cover of my sister's copy.

LOK ska we used to play the Famous Five (I was George, my brother was Julian) or the Hardy Boys. I was the younger Hardy Boy, till my brother got a proper friend and then I was demoted to being Nancy Drew.

typical boy! i never read nancy drew - are they good would my dd like them do you think?

I didn't really like them that much I must admit, though I think there has been a film made recently which might spark a new interest in the books?

Apparently there's some animated Famous Five spin-off being made at the moment as well - Disney I think.

My copy of Clover arrived today. Am delighted to be able to read it, but pickily disappointed with the book itself (Dodo Press). Illustrations look as if lifted off the web, increased to 200 per cent of original size then printed. And layout inside weird, with double line breaks between every paragraph. Horrid.

However! I am going to bed with it now and am prepared to enjoy.

Don't know if anyone has mentioned them(and not related to Noel Streatfield) but www.ggbp.co.uk do gorgeous reprints of lots of old books(usually the original version too) as well as providing a generally comprehensive foreward, biography, sometimes extra articles etc. They have probably sold out of Clover/ In the High Valley etc as they only do a limited run but they have links to second hand dealers. Well worth a look, and reasonably priced(about £11 for a standard book).

Ann and Clarissa who run GGB do a really good job with the reprints - you can tell that they do it because they love the books and want more people to enjoy them.

Just had a quick peek they look good all right. Lone Pine Five - Malcolm Saville - rang a distant bell for me. I'd love some of those Chalet School ones! It always annoyed me that the selection in print meant there were so many gaps in the story.

I have many GGBP reprints .

No 19 - there are lots of copies of "Clover" available on Abebooks
www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=susan+coolidge&sts=t&tn=clover&x=59&y=5
A lot of them are "print on demand" and I haven't looked through the whole list, but I should think you'd find some "proper" old editions further up the price range!

What a gorgeous threed! Why have I never been to a conference on children's books/old girls' novels??

Ha No19 - have just seen you already got it! Hope you do enjoy.

yes Rosa, I have read 8 Cousins and Rose in Bloom. Think I have a copy of 8 Cousins. But I can't remember anything about either of them ... I think Susan Coolidge was a much better writer than LM Alcott, especially in the first few chapters of What Katy Did (before the Accident), the children are very realistic and natural, they quarrel, go off in huffs, get up to mischief, disregard authority, are mean to each other, make up fantastic and dangerous games ... whereas the Little Women are pretty stereotyped, none of them ever behaves out of character. Having said that, have read all 4 Little Women books several times each ...

there is also the NS ones about the three refugees.. brilliant and probably v, topical at the moment. Remember the bits about the brother only wanting bread and olives to eat and the foster dad paving his garden because he did not want the bother of flowers

Ballet Shoes for Anna . He was their uncle and was Not Nice. Although the aunt was all right (if scared of him).

OMG: Swish of the Curtain!! I can't believe it! I'm rendered almost speechless.

Aitch and FandZ, you have always been my secret best friends on mn, and I am now going to declare it to the world!! (stalker emoticon)

yes ballet shoes for Anna. It was a bit harry pottery though wasn't it. (escape from narrow minded muggles through special talents)

First, sorry that my last post was referring back to the very beginning of the thread and not following the conversation - I was very overexcited! and second I would like to revise my spontaneous effusiveness and attempt to regain some dignity, so instead of gushing like a 13 year old, what I REALLY meant was: our cultural lives seem to have followed remarkably similar paths, especially FandZ: from Swish of the Curtain to Half Man Half Biscuit (although I only LISTENED to them!) to Franny and Zooey itself.

OK, I'm done. Back to normal people conversing normally. I'm seriously considering a namechange!

My dd certainly enjoyed both Streatfield and Nesbit. I think the richer language/more description is an advantage, as it stretches them a little bit; so much modern culture is pre-chewed and pre-digested (though there are some very good authors around atm too).

Does anyone out there know 'The Lost Prince' by Frances Hodginkson Burnett. It was my favourite for ages when young. Much better than the ghastly Little Lord Fauntleroy and I preferred it to 'The little Princess'?

Also loved The Treasure Seakers and my favourite, 'The Wouldbegoods' by Nesbit.

did anyone read Jennings? I used to read these and my son loved them when he was about 10. My husband and I started calling ourselves 'the prehistoric remains'

Can recommend the Just William books on CD read 'by me, Martin Jarvis' for long holiday trips in the car. 'That boy is Mad' has now become a family refrain!

son 1 now into Jeeves and Wooster. He can't read them himself cause he is so dyslexic he has a very low reading age but he loves the CDs and has his own 'Jeeves' mug and says 'very good M'lady' in a sepulcheral voice when asked to do jobs!

I agree, cory, about the richer language, and it is great for children to read books which can both absorb and stretch them. Having said that I do think there are some fantastic modern writers (DS currently reading Michael Morpurgo, really excellent historical novel set in the time of the Irish famine, two children forced to emigrate to America). He's pushing 10 and I think it's just right - a great storyline, details of history, which stick, and language which is not dumbed down. He finds dialect (written) hard to understand - but then so do I, and hate it.

Sorry didn't mean to write at such length!

I think I will investigate Jennings for him, it will suit his very Beano, old-style ideas of humour! Darbishire was his friend, wasn't he?