REVIEW: Triplets at Royders
May. 26th, 2019 03:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllTriplets at Royders: Margaret Biggs and Jacqueline Blairman, Sampson Low.
I’m presuming that this book preceded Brent-Dyer giving Joey Maynard triplets! This is based on internal evidence in this book about the effects of what has to be the first world war. It’s a look at what it is to be a triplet as well as a good school’s influence on girls’ growing up. The triplets are Sheila, Robina and Anne Travers. Sheila has just won a scholarship to Royders, and lively, cheeky Robin, the next in age, begs their uncle, stepping in for their dead father, to let her and Anne go too, as they’ve never been separated. Fortunately, he doesn’t think her too cheeky and sorts it out, merely asking Robin not to get expelled. He offers Anne more unexpected advice.
Shy Anne is reluctant to embrace change, and very unhappy during her first weeks at Royders. She’s put in the Lower Fourth, while clever Sheila is delighting the mistresses in the Upper Fourth, where Robin has also been placed, where she gets into mischief. However, Robin is very musical and rather sensitive under her careless surface.
Robin chums up with twins Jill and Phil, especially the latter. Sheila is befriended by the form prefect Norah and games captain Elizabeth. Although she shares a dorm with her sisters, Anne – all too aware that she isn’t brilliant – is homesick. But with the help of a family friend, she settles down and makes a friend in Brenda.
It’s the other two who then suffer growing pains after deciding they were going to love Royders. First, they realise they haven’t always been the most observant sisters, then Sheila is given a taste of responsibility, but bossing her own irrepressible sister is tough. Meanwhile, Robin has created an enemy in Monica Jukes, another musical girl, who is less talented and jealously, wilfully misunderstands most of Robin’s actions.
Throw in even the best mistress being fallible as well as tactless and partisan schoolgirls, and it’s a year of rows!
Meanwhile, at home, their uncle is hoping to become a stepfather (my response could be summarised as ‘um’) – discussing it with the triplets, who hadn’t seen this change coming. The authors note that if the girls had vetoed it, the marriage wouldn’t have gone ahead, which is suggestive about the couple’s motivations. But it’s all right and the adults arrange the wedding so that the girls can be there…I’ve discussed my feelings about the handling of second marriages around the children of a first marriage when reviewing, for example, ‘Audrey’s Awakening’.
Anne benefits the most from gaining her independence from her sisters at Royders (although she’s the only one who had a good friend at home). Sheila blossoms academically and even Robin matures. No-one would ever mistake any of the triplets for each other because of appearance and personality.
It’s not OTT, illogical or overdramatic, apart perhaps from the incident when one of the girls is falsely accused, allowing the focus to return to the special bond that will always exist between the sisters, however much they have made their own friends. Although triplets would be quite a hook, it’s a relatively stodgy book.
There are quite a lot of illustrations in this edition. Sadly, I didn’t much like the drawings of the girls.
I’m presuming that this book preceded Brent-Dyer giving Joey Maynard triplets! This is based on internal evidence in this book about the effects of what has to be the first world war. It’s a look at what it is to be a triplet as well as a good school’s influence on girls’ growing up. The triplets are Sheila, Robina and Anne Travers. Sheila has just won a scholarship to Royders, and lively, cheeky Robin, the next in age, begs their uncle, stepping in for their dead father, to let her and Anne go too, as they’ve never been separated. Fortunately, he doesn’t think her too cheeky and sorts it out, merely asking Robin not to get expelled. He offers Anne more unexpected advice.
Shy Anne is reluctant to embrace change, and very unhappy during her first weeks at Royders. She’s put in the Lower Fourth, while clever Sheila is delighting the mistresses in the Upper Fourth, where Robin has also been placed, where she gets into mischief. However, Robin is very musical and rather sensitive under her careless surface.
Robin chums up with twins Jill and Phil, especially the latter. Sheila is befriended by the form prefect Norah and games captain Elizabeth. Although she shares a dorm with her sisters, Anne – all too aware that she isn’t brilliant – is homesick. But with the help of a family friend, she settles down and makes a friend in Brenda.
It’s the other two who then suffer growing pains after deciding they were going to love Royders. First, they realise they haven’t always been the most observant sisters, then Sheila is given a taste of responsibility, but bossing her own irrepressible sister is tough. Meanwhile, Robin has created an enemy in Monica Jukes, another musical girl, who is less talented and jealously, wilfully misunderstands most of Robin’s actions.
Throw in even the best mistress being fallible as well as tactless and partisan schoolgirls, and it’s a year of rows!
Meanwhile, at home, their uncle is hoping to become a stepfather (my response could be summarised as ‘um’) – discussing it with the triplets, who hadn’t seen this change coming. The authors note that if the girls had vetoed it, the marriage wouldn’t have gone ahead, which is suggestive about the couple’s motivations. But it’s all right and the adults arrange the wedding so that the girls can be there…I’ve discussed my feelings about the handling of second marriages around the children of a first marriage when reviewing, for example, ‘Audrey’s Awakening’.
Anne benefits the most from gaining her independence from her sisters at Royders (although she’s the only one who had a good friend at home). Sheila blossoms academically and even Robin matures. No-one would ever mistake any of the triplets for each other because of appearance and personality.
It’s not OTT, illogical or overdramatic, apart perhaps from the incident when one of the girls is falsely accused, allowing the focus to return to the special bond that will always exist between the sisters, however much they have made their own friends. Although triplets would be quite a hook, it’s a relatively stodgy book.
There are quite a lot of illustrations in this edition. Sadly, I didn’t much like the drawings of the girls.
