REREADING: Madcap Judy
Apr. 7th, 2014 07:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllMadcap Judy: Katharine L. Oldmeadow, Collins
This book possibly suffered from being the fifth or so book by Oldmeadow that I’ve reread, although elements also reminded me of several other girls own books that I’ve read. Despite the title, the heroine is Jean Murray (initials: JAM), a motherless girl whose Colonel father sent from India to live with a fussy old aunt. Educated by an old-fashioned and unimaginative governess, Jean’s only friend is Diana, of whom her aunt doesn’t approve, as Diana likes sport and uses slang. To Jean’s dismay, Diana is leaving the local day-school for what sounds like a charming boarding school named Queen’s Revel in the New Forest (how far away would it be from Princess Charming’s Idle Pines, I wonder). Impulsively, she gives Jean a copy of the prospectus and equally impulsively, Jean forwards it to her father, for although she’s awfully grateful to her aunt, her life is somewhat dismal.
What Jean doesn’t know is that Colonel Murray is already acquainted with the principal of the school, Miss Virginia Flower. His high opinion of her and, perhaps, the tenor of Jean’s letter lead him to order that Jean is to go to this school forthwith. Vapours from her aunt and governess ensue, muffling Jean’s excitement, which might also be muted by some qualms about what boarding school life will be like.
Queen’s Revel is as charming as Diana promised, with three school crows, lessons in gardening, cooking and carpentry as well as more academic subjects but also terrifying for a shy, imaginative girl who is used to being quoshed, as the sympathetic headmistress intuits. Jean shares a dorm with Diana and Judith More, the liveliest girl at school. These three are the main characters, with Jean turning out to be a remarkable new girl – she rescues the school from fire and uses her writing and artistic ability for the school’s benefit. Judy is more forceful, a bit of a tomboy and the leader of a vendetta against an unpopular mistress and her favourite pupil.
At first, the dorm doesn’t welcome Jean, for she is the eighth inhabitant of their dorm which is also a society called the Secret Seven. But Jean proves her pluck and that she has good ideas and she becomes a vital member even though their name remains the Secret Seven. The story is episodic in nature. The Seven have adventures in school and despite her aunt’s initial decree that Jean will stay at the school for the holidays, she has adventures then too. Lessons are learned and the girls are sometimes made fun of. Occasionally it felt like Oldmeadow dropped the story and picked it back up again when she’d come up with another escapade.
The Seven tend to have crazes, one of which leads to the discovery of a secret chamber, for the school building goes back to Tudor times, being named after the time that Elizabeth I stayed there. We upgrade from Oldmeadow’s usual princesses to Queens in this book. One reason why Miss Savage is so loathed is that she tries to cram in as much information about Queen Elizabeth as possible into the girls’ heads as possible until Judy scores one over her. Conversely, as a sign of how much the girls love Miss Flowers, they call her Queen Virginia.
First published in 1919, it’s set during the first world war, but this is a background detail.
This book possibly suffered from being the fifth or so book by Oldmeadow that I’ve reread, although elements also reminded me of several other girls own books that I’ve read. Despite the title, the heroine is Jean Murray (initials: JAM), a motherless girl whose Colonel father sent from India to live with a fussy old aunt. Educated by an old-fashioned and unimaginative governess, Jean’s only friend is Diana, of whom her aunt doesn’t approve, as Diana likes sport and uses slang. To Jean’s dismay, Diana is leaving the local day-school for what sounds like a charming boarding school named Queen’s Revel in the New Forest (how far away would it be from Princess Charming’s Idle Pines, I wonder). Impulsively, she gives Jean a copy of the prospectus and equally impulsively, Jean forwards it to her father, for although she’s awfully grateful to her aunt, her life is somewhat dismal.
What Jean doesn’t know is that Colonel Murray is already acquainted with the principal of the school, Miss Virginia Flower. His high opinion of her and, perhaps, the tenor of Jean’s letter lead him to order that Jean is to go to this school forthwith. Vapours from her aunt and governess ensue, muffling Jean’s excitement, which might also be muted by some qualms about what boarding school life will be like.
Queen’s Revel is as charming as Diana promised, with three school crows, lessons in gardening, cooking and carpentry as well as more academic subjects but also terrifying for a shy, imaginative girl who is used to being quoshed, as the sympathetic headmistress intuits. Jean shares a dorm with Diana and Judith More, the liveliest girl at school. These three are the main characters, with Jean turning out to be a remarkable new girl – she rescues the school from fire and uses her writing and artistic ability for the school’s benefit. Judy is more forceful, a bit of a tomboy and the leader of a vendetta against an unpopular mistress and her favourite pupil.
At first, the dorm doesn’t welcome Jean, for she is the eighth inhabitant of their dorm which is also a society called the Secret Seven. But Jean proves her pluck and that she has good ideas and she becomes a vital member even though their name remains the Secret Seven. The story is episodic in nature. The Seven have adventures in school and despite her aunt’s initial decree that Jean will stay at the school for the holidays, she has adventures then too. Lessons are learned and the girls are sometimes made fun of. Occasionally it felt like Oldmeadow dropped the story and picked it back up again when she’d come up with another escapade.
The Seven tend to have crazes, one of which leads to the discovery of a secret chamber, for the school building goes back to Tudor times, being named after the time that Elizabeth I stayed there. We upgrade from Oldmeadow’s usual princesses to Queens in this book. One reason why Miss Savage is so loathed is that she tries to cram in as much information about Queen Elizabeth as possible into the girls’ heads as possible until Judy scores one over her. Conversely, as a sign of how much the girls love Miss Flowers, they call her Queen Virginia.
First published in 1919, it’s set during the first world war, but this is a background detail.
