feather_ghyll

A Head Girl’s Difficulties: Elinor M. Brent-Dyer Chambers, Reprint 1957

The passenger sitting next to me on a train observed that I was really enjoying this. I suppose I was, but I was a little frustrated with the book overall, because ( Read more... )

Biddy and Quilla: Evelyn Smith, Blackie

Evelyn Smith provides a sympathetic look at growing pains through a burgeoning friendship here. A few plot contrivances aside, it’s realistic, psychologically accurate and amusing.

Priscilla ‘Quilla’ Thornton is ( Read more... )

First Term, Worst Term: E.M. De Foubert (Oxford, inscribed 1935)

This book starts off like a family story in which youngsters have to survive on their own in difficult financial straits but then becomes a school story. ( Read more... )

Challenge for the Chalet School: Elinor M. Brent-Dyer, Armada, 1991

Oh, look, I’m quibbling about titles again, but perhaps ‘Challenges for the Chalet School’ would have been better, with ( Read more... )

Schooldays at the Abbey: Elsie J. Oxenham Collins 1949 (although there’s an inscription from 1956 on it)

A lot happens in this book. Because of ( Read more... )

Give a Form a Bad Name: Nancy Breary. Newnes, 1943

This is the funniest book I’ve read all year, and I am all the more impressed because many authors of boarding school stories set out to make you laugh at their ‘madcap’ heroines, but only manage a smile. I had to put this book down to finish laughing and then have cause to laugh again as soon I picked it back up. Breary also managed to make me care about her characters (something that Frank Richards, say, never has done.)

The form in question is ( Read more... )

Daisy: Susan Warner, Miles & Miles

This is a case where a book didn’t turn out to be quite what I expected. My copy has gold blocks on its front cover and spine and the very type shouts out that from the late nineteenth century. I’d never heard of it or the author, Susan Warnerm before, but presumed it was in the Rosa N. Carey, E. Everett-Green vein. It isn’t quite.

( Read more... )

The Jolliest Term on Record: Angela Brazil, Blackie

I’ll begin, inevitably, by listing some of the names that appear in this book: ( Read more... )

Pixie O’Shaughnessy: Mrs George de Horne Vaizey. The Religious Tract Society, Thirteenth Edition

It’s nearly 20 years since I bought and, presumably, first read this book. I decided to reacquaint myself with the character having purchased ‘More about Pixie’ in 2016 and got my opportunity over the Christmas holidays - the book features a striking New Year's Eve party. Before I reread it, ( Read more... )

A Thrilling Term at Janeways': Elinor M. Brent-Dyer, Nelson

I found this 'School Story for Girls' ( Read more... )