feather_ghyll

Campfire Girls in the Country (or The Secret Aunt Hannah Forgot): Stella M. Francis

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Doctor Noreen: E.E. Ellsworth

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The Mascotte of Sunnydale: E.L. Haverfield

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Of the three, I preferred the latter.

There was another book that I read over my Easter holidays that I want to review, but it deserves a post of its own.

The Camp Fire Girls at Hillside: Margaret Love Sanderson Reilly & Britten 1913

Following Pam Plays Doubles, this is another example of an interesting girls own subgenre, well, two, I suppose. First of all, it’s an American boarding school story (a small subgenre in my experience, but think What Katy Did at School and Jean Webster’s books). Granted, Miss Belaire’s Academy, located in Hillside, New England, in the teens of the twentieth century, is more of a boarding tertiary college for young ladies whose fathers wanted them to continue their education. But although our heroines are between 16 and 19, in many ways they feel about as young as English fourth formers who seem to range from 13 to 16. They’re girls, not quite young women.

It’s also a Camp Fire story, and while it bears a lot of similarities with Guide stories, there are some differences.

There were girls in pink linen and blue; girls in white duck and purple crash; girls in frilly lingerie waists, and girls in stiff tailormade’. (page 22 – I have no idea what type of outfits ‘white duck’ on are referring to).

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I ended my stint at the charity shop on Tuesday. Once again, it was pretty busy, but not that many books were sold. I got a look at the selection on offer and there were very few children's books, mostly picture books, so there's no wonder I didn't sell many of them. IIRC, I sold a saga romance, a chick lit book and a humorous book. I didn't buy any books for myself, but I did buy a classical music CD and it's on as I type this :) The experience was cool, I did feel as if I genuinely helped out, and even that much experience of being on the other side and seeing how dependent the shops are on donations among other day-to-day pressures was an eye-opener. The vast majority of customers was retired, but you got all sorts coming in. A lot of the men did what I do in such shops and make a beeline for the bookshelves.

Anyway, the review:

For the Sake of the School: Angela Brazil, Blackie.

It's about time I came to write a review of a book by (possibly) the queen of girls' school stories. It is, after all, Brazil who is most likely to get mentioned first in discussions about boarding school stories, and that's an achievement for she didn't write series like Brent-Dyer, Oxenham and Fairlie Bruce. That is not to say that a reader doesn't know exactly what they're going to get when they pick up a book of hers :) Still, respect is due - and what did I do? I dropped my copy in seawater. Um...whoops, sorry! It's okay though, it only got a little wet.

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