REVIEW: Penny in search of a school
Apr. 14th, 2013 04:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllPenny in Search of a School: E.M. de Foubert Oxford University Press 1939
This is rather a remarkable book, as the title suggests. The events that take place are extraordinary, the characters are exaggerated, but the writer seems to know it and not to care, because she just wants to tell a rollicking good story.
Orphaned Penny has been brought up by her aunt Harriey, who has a believes in a certain amount of independence and self-reliance for young people – more than most guardians would have. Until now, Penny has been educated at a small and limited preparatory school with her friend Lenore, who is sweet, enthusiastic and a bit of a magnet for things happening, as is Penny in her own way. Anyway, at the start of the book, Penny and her aunt are searching for a bigger, better school, preferably a boarding school, and Aunt Harriet is prepared to leave the final choice to her niece, for Penny is fairly sensible and enjoys studying, although perhaps she is a little too sensitive and liable to rush to a conclusion. The decision falls solely to Penny when, unfortunately, her aunt has to sail to Canada to see a cousin she describes as difficult, but who is now dying. She leaves Penny to the care of a not-so-young housekeeper and Penny turns to the well-meaning Len for help in her continuing hunt for a suitable school, which doesn’t go so well...
As an aside, I don’t think I’ve ever read about a girl searching for a school in this way before. Penny visits several schools in a day, first with her aunt, then without her. This is a hardship for her, because she’s a terrible traveller – again, a novelty and something I have some sympathy with, although I seem to have got worse with age. To some extent, Penny suffers as the plot demands, although the author covered herself by claiming that Penny would grow out of the condition.
Apart from Lenore-induced disaster, these schools are all much of a muchness and Penny ranches out to Westshire, even though her aunt was hesitant about doing so for what are clearly Mysterious Reasons. Still, Penny visits two schools, first Coombe Hall which is run by Mrs Moon, one of the extraordinary aspects of this book. The school is run on liberated lines i.e. the girls choose their timetables, and although Penny might be better served by a more regular school that could meet her academic needs, she is seriously considering there, but one person stands in the way. Penny is getting a taste of the school by staying there for a few days, but got off on the wrong foot with one Maxine. Everything Penny does innocently exacerbates the other girls passionate resentment, which leads to what could have been a tragedy. This, certainly, is far more familiar girls own territory.
The second school is a haven and Penny wants to become a Rilstonite, but the two sisters who run the school, despite being kind and good Samaritans, are Mysteriously hesitant about accepting her. But with Lenore back on the scene – she wangles her way into getting to run wild at Coombe Hall after Penny’s glowing report of it – all is resolved happily.
It’s not a school story per se – we get more of an idea of how Coombe Hall is run – eccentrically - than anywhere else. This type of school is to be found in other books and was probably influenced by Summerhill School. Penny is a likeable heroine, even as the reader knows more than she does and can see how her deeply flet and well meaning decisions and actions are going to lead to consequences she never considers. She is actually quite vulnerable, which is why a lot of adults feel the need to help her. At one point, she is in such dire straits after overtaxing her strength physically and emotionally, that the best thing for her to do is to let a stranger take her home and look after her. (This being a story, it really is all right, because the stranger is unknowingly an estranged relative.) There are glimpses of psychology, but a lot of the characters are borderline caricatures, like intense, motherless, half-English Maxine and Lenore’s vague but well-connected academic uncle. But again, my sense was that de Foubert knew what she was doing there. There are eccentric touches from character’s names to their hobbies and familiar tropes are pushed to an unusual extreme. It’s like a mash-up of stories.
Fortunately then, Penny finds a school that is ‘IT’ for her, helps to heal the breach in her family that she didn’t even know about, leads Len to a school that is ‘IT’ for her too and helps a mixed-up, emotional girl learn self-control. I enjoyed it and will look out for more by this author.
This is rather a remarkable book, as the title suggests. The events that take place are extraordinary, the characters are exaggerated, but the writer seems to know it and not to care, because she just wants to tell a rollicking good story.
Orphaned Penny has been brought up by her aunt Harriey, who has a believes in a certain amount of independence and self-reliance for young people – more than most guardians would have. Until now, Penny has been educated at a small and limited preparatory school with her friend Lenore, who is sweet, enthusiastic and a bit of a magnet for things happening, as is Penny in her own way. Anyway, at the start of the book, Penny and her aunt are searching for a bigger, better school, preferably a boarding school, and Aunt Harriet is prepared to leave the final choice to her niece, for Penny is fairly sensible and enjoys studying, although perhaps she is a little too sensitive and liable to rush to a conclusion. The decision falls solely to Penny when, unfortunately, her aunt has to sail to Canada to see a cousin she describes as difficult, but who is now dying. She leaves Penny to the care of a not-so-young housekeeper and Penny turns to the well-meaning Len for help in her continuing hunt for a suitable school, which doesn’t go so well...
As an aside, I don’t think I’ve ever read about a girl searching for a school in this way before. Penny visits several schools in a day, first with her aunt, then without her. This is a hardship for her, because she’s a terrible traveller – again, a novelty and something I have some sympathy with, although I seem to have got worse with age. To some extent, Penny suffers as the plot demands, although the author covered herself by claiming that Penny would grow out of the condition.
Apart from Lenore-induced disaster, these schools are all much of a muchness and Penny ranches out to Westshire, even though her aunt was hesitant about doing so for what are clearly Mysterious Reasons. Still, Penny visits two schools, first Coombe Hall which is run by Mrs Moon, one of the extraordinary aspects of this book. The school is run on liberated lines i.e. the girls choose their timetables, and although Penny might be better served by a more regular school that could meet her academic needs, she is seriously considering there, but one person stands in the way. Penny is getting a taste of the school by staying there for a few days, but got off on the wrong foot with one Maxine. Everything Penny does innocently exacerbates the other girls passionate resentment, which leads to what could have been a tragedy. This, certainly, is far more familiar girls own territory.
The second school is a haven and Penny wants to become a Rilstonite, but the two sisters who run the school, despite being kind and good Samaritans, are Mysteriously hesitant about accepting her. But with Lenore back on the scene – she wangles her way into getting to run wild at Coombe Hall after Penny’s glowing report of it – all is resolved happily.
It’s not a school story per se – we get more of an idea of how Coombe Hall is run – eccentrically - than anywhere else. This type of school is to be found in other books and was probably influenced by Summerhill School. Penny is a likeable heroine, even as the reader knows more than she does and can see how her deeply flet and well meaning decisions and actions are going to lead to consequences she never considers. She is actually quite vulnerable, which is why a lot of adults feel the need to help her. At one point, she is in such dire straits after overtaxing her strength physically and emotionally, that the best thing for her to do is to let a stranger take her home and look after her. (This being a story, it really is all right, because the stranger is unknowingly an estranged relative.) There are glimpses of psychology, but a lot of the characters are borderline caricatures, like intense, motherless, half-English Maxine and Lenore’s vague but well-connected academic uncle. But again, my sense was that de Foubert knew what she was doing there. There are eccentric touches from character’s names to their hobbies and familiar tropes are pushed to an unusual extreme. It’s like a mash-up of stories.
Fortunately then, Penny finds a school that is ‘IT’ for her, helps to heal the breach in her family that she didn’t even know about, leads Len to a school that is ‘IT’ for her too and helps a mixed-up, emotional girl learn self-control. I enjoyed it and will look out for more by this author.
