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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... )

Terry’s Best Term: Evelyn Smith Blackie (an inscription reveals that my copy was a gift in Christmas 1959, although the content suggests that it was first published during the interwar period, and an article in Folly says it was 1926,)

She thought of Terry, and her firm little face softened. She liked Terry, liked her tremendously. People always laughed at schoolgirl friendships, but then people laughed at mothers for thinking their babies so wonderful, at old maids for coddling their dogs—at lots of things, nearly all women’s things. Julia thought over that, and decided that it wasn’t fair.
(p. 170)

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Nicky of the Lower Fourth by Evelyn Smith (Blackie & Son.) is the first book by this authoress that I’ve ever read, but I’ll certainly keep an eye out for more from now on. ( Read more... )

Willingly to School: Mary Cathcart Borer Lutterworth Press 1976.

I have to admit to being underwhelmed. For one thing, surely it would have been more honest to subtitle it ‘A History of English Women’s Education’, ( Read more... )

Torley Grange: Gwendoline Courtney Girls Gone By Publishers, 2008.

The word that comes to me after having enjoyed reading this book on a train journey is ‘jolly’. ( Read more... )