The Chalet School

[ShellacB]

There seem to be plenty of old Chalet School Threads, but I can't find a current one.

In the middle of a re read. I have just finished the Tyrolean and Herefordshire ones. I loved them!

I do remember the Swiss books not being quite of the same quality, so not sure whether to read them all.

Could anyone recommend the best Swiss books if I was to skim through?

The reunion type ones are all some of EBD's weakest, alas. They neither do a particularly good job of reintroducing past beloved characters nor doing anything that interesting in their 'present' -- often it's some dire variant on the triplets gormlessly saying 'Do go on, Mamma' while Joey reminisces and . You'd be better off reading the Tyrol books again. All the holiday books in the Swiss period are pretty weak.

I think I'd start the Swiss books with A Genius or Problem. Both of those are some of the better early Swiss-era books. There's a sharp decline in quality towards the end, though some have laugh value, like Redheads.

Agreed. I'm currently reading book 48, The Feud in the Chalet School. The Swiss books are very formulaic. I'd just carry on chronologically

There's a sharp decline in quality towards the end, though some have laugh value, like Redheads.

Though I do like Flavia. One of the nice, reliable types, like Kat Gordon and Jo Scott.

I don't like Adrienne because Adrienne is so wet and the Big Reveal is so improbable. I l like the Two Sams as characters. The weakest for me are Summer Term and Althea, with all those indistinguishable Junior Middles we'd never met before.

There's The chalet school returns to the alps which is a fill-in by Lisa Townsend, i haven't read it yet as i find the fill-ins a bit hit or miss and i get disappointed if its a miss but it does have good reviews on amazon.

Agreed. Flavia is nice.

I mean, there's laugh value in lots of the later books, like the motorboats, the meteor and, yes, Adrienne (though it's the start that cracks me up, with Robin melodramatically confronting the brothel-madam-cum-landlady clearly threatening to make Adrienne pay her rent in a way previously unheard of at the CS!) turning out to resemble the wrong part of her and Robin's ancestry... And nasty Jack Lambert and her friends getting lost in the snow and completely uncharacteristically falling to their knees to pray.

And I personally find any mention of Professor Richardson and his own personal space race hilarious. Actually all the Richardsons are treated hilariously. Roger's six foot of masculinity being eyed up by Joey, and Ruey being criticised by the triplets for not using tablecloths and tchotckas to make their chalet 'dainty'. 😀

.....turning out to resemble the wrong part of her and Robin's ancestry...

And all the many people at the school who had known Robin as a teenager failing to spot the resemblance, while Mary Lou, who barely knew Robin, and only as an adult, saw it instantly.

At least EBD remembered that it was Dick Bettany who originally knew Ted Humphries best.

How do CS fans feel about GGBP deciding that CS books should not ever be available in e-format and only keep a few hard copies in print at any one time? I have to say that I think they would probably have sold a lot more copies had they been available online and personally I'd prefer to have the choice.

I think it's such a shame. I'm vision impaired and I would really love to be able to get eBook so that I can make the font really big

I hadn't even considered that @moresoup obviously with no e-books bar a magnifying glass and a steady hand there's no way to enlarge text and it doesn't seem like audio books has ever been on the radar for GGBP, it really is just two people unrelated to EBD profiteering off her work. Likewise they have the rights to Antonia Forest's work but I think that was due to expire.

also @moresoup there are quite a few CS books available on international library websites where UK copyright laws don't apply - in an e-format, message me if you want some links.

Ooh yes please!

There are a lot of them on https://www.fadedpage.com/csearch.php?author=Brent-Dyer,%20Elinor%20Mary if that helps. And Faded Page is well worth exploring in general.

I think it's a shame also and I don't fully understand why that decision has been made.

Surely if they were all available on ebook it would open The Chalet School to a much wider modern readership and given the amount of interest there clearly still is in the series you would imagine it would also raise substantial profits.

Fadedpage as linked above and also https://archive.org/search?query=chalet+school have e-copies.

I vaguely recall that when they were just starting out and e-books were not as big as they are now, they said they had tried a couple of e-books but found the money they made was not enough to cover the work needed to produce them. At that time they both had other jobs, so didn't have unlimited time.

Now e-books are a much bigger thing, but they are that much older, and I think are still just a two-woman business. There's probably a limit to what they feel they can take on.

And keeping more titles in print would require more storage space, which would add to costs. And other increased upfront costs such as payments to printers.

Not if they used a print on demand service. Jane Badger has a similar business for classic children's pony books and offers e-books and paperbacks. But of course its their business and their choice.

Richenda and Adrienne are now up on Fadedpage.

And now Reunion.

As a child I was loaned an EBD book by a friend. It was called "Monica Turns Up Trumps." I really enjoyed it and was ridiculously excited when Monica turned up at the Chalet School with her cousins, Vicky and Alixe McNabb.I was a regular at the public library and owned few books, but unfortunately no CS ones. Well-meaning relatives gave me things like "The Children of the New Forest" and "Kennilworth" and not what I really wanted. I did have one aunt who gave me "Little Women" for my tenth birthday and followed it up with the "Katy" books. As soon as I left for university, my mother gave away all my books to a jumble sale. She was a reader herself, but when I reproached her, she said I was "too old for children's books." She was perplexed when I started buying replacement copies and CS books years later. I now have quite a collection and frequently wonder what will happen to them down the line. Maybe one of the grandchildren wll be tempted to dip in, but so far, not even the most avid bookworm has shown any interest. Still, my carefully curated books sit on the shelves and give me enormous pleasure. I still remember, so many decades later, the thill of opening for the first time "Jo of the Chalet School." ("The School at the Chalet" came later.) I signed up for the newsletters and wore my little Eidelweiss pin with pride - until it got lost.