feather_ghyll: Illustration of the Chalet against a white background with blue border (Chalet School)
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... )
feather_ghyll: Illustration of the Chalet against a white background with blue border (Chalet School)
The Chalet School Does It Again: Elinor M. Brent-Dyer. Armada, 1990

I am excruciatingly slowly completing my Chalet School collection, and yes, with the aid of abridged Armada publications.

The title of this story always Read more... )
feather_ghyll: Illustration of the Chalet against a white background with blue border (Chalet School)
Carola Storms the Chalet School: Elinor M. Brent-Dyer. 1951 (although I suspect this is a reprint) Chambers

A reread, this, because I brought a hardback copy - I had an Armada copy already – partly for sentimental reasons, as the secondhand bookshop I was buying it at was closing.

Anyhow, this is the story where Read more... )
feather_ghyll: Illustration of the Chalet against a white background with blue border (Chalet School)
The Chalet School and the Lintons: Elinor M. Brent-Dyer Chambers 1940 reprint

I’d previously read this story as split into two by Armada. It was nice to have it all in one hardback volume, although I managed to slosh some coffee over it at one point.

The story is that Gillian and Joyce LintonRead more... )

LINKS: Two

Mar. 9th, 2014 03:32 pm
feather_ghyll: Illustration of the Chalet against a white background with blue border (Chalet School)
Carolynp mounts a well-argued defence of the Chalet School's Mary-Lou (I have to admit that my initial response was ‘Huh?’ at Mary-Lou needing to be defended)
here

Here's a blog post about slang and its use to include and exclude.

The other day, I experienced something that has never happened to me before when buying a book - I watched bemused as the shopkeeper wrapped it up in brown paper, stuck some tape to keep it together but then cut off a piece of string and tied it up with a bow. It was one of Maria's favourite things. It was at a shop that sold 'vintage' goods and was partly a tea shop - too knick knacky to be an antiques shop, and with all sorts of objects lying in front of the mainly hardback books that were for sale in a bookshelf. The book in question was in quite good nick, so I suppose it's what they do with everything they sell.
feather_ghyll: Illustration of the Chalet against a white background with blue border (Chalet School)
I got hold of a Chambers hardback copy of this book (a reprint) - I wasn't struck by anything additional that wasn't in the paperback edition, but I haven't compared page by page or anything. (ETA: My Armada paperback is a 'revised edition' which was first published in 1970. Still couldn't tell you how revised it is, though.)

In this book, Read more... )

Edited on 17.1.14.
feather_ghyll: Illustration of the Chalet against a white background with blue border (Chalet School)
One thing that I learned from reading A. M. W.’s ‘The Kettle of Fortune’ in Blackie’s Girls’ Annual is that trespassing is all right if you are posh and English, but not if you are poor and Scottish. Yes, I'm still working through that annual.

The Coming of Age of the Chalet School: Elinor M. Brent-Dyer

Reading ‘Excitements at the Chalet School’ inspired me to read ‘Coming of Age’, the next in the series. I have an Armada paperback copy that I bought back in the day when Chalet School books cost £1.95, and I had a habit of underlining all the Chalet girls’ names that appeared in my copy. Fortunately, I only kept up that bad habit for the first chapter, perhaps because I realised that in this book, of all Chalet School books, where so many Old Girls come back for a visit to join in the school’s celebrations, that it would be a bit much.

So, what did I think, now that I am closer in age to those Old Girls? Read more... )
feather_ghyll: Illustration of the Chalet against a white background with blue border (Chalet School)
Excitements at the Chalet School: Elinor M. Brent-Dyer Armada, 1987

It has been years and years since I last read a Chalet School book or got my mitts on one of the few in the series that I hadn’t read (a slightly longer list than that of the ones I own thanks to libraries and friends). I genuinely think that I never read this before, Read more... )
feather_ghyll: Book shop store front, text reading 'wear the old coat, buy the new book.' (Book not coat)
French page dedicated to Eric Leyland. It states that Leyland was a friend of Captain W. Johns - author of the Biggles books - and also wrote under the pseudonym of Elizabeth Tarrant (I didn't know this, I have one of 'her' books!). There's a full looking bibiliography - though they warn that it isn't necessarily complete, due to the numerous pseuds that he used - with pictures of covers. This suggests that there is a series of Stanton's books (I wonder if they are about Statnon's in its incarnation before 'Stanton's comes of Age' or after?
This
would suggest that it's after.)

Details on the casting for the new Ballet Shoes adaptation. My reaction. ) Also, I really need to reread the book.

The Fossil Cupboard - a message board to discuss Streatfeild's books.

And for Ransome fans, on lj, there's [livejournal.com profile] ransomefans. (I saw a Swallows and Amazons mug of the classic cover, which I had a bit of a struggle over, but couldn't justify buying it right now, 15 % opening weekend discount or no. This was at the new Borders.

P'raps I can engineer a mug-related accident...

Wikipedia offers this list of fictional works invented by EBD (it hurts me a little that they are not chronologically ordered).

[livejournal.com profile] astralis on new girls, honour and girls who don't fit in in girls school stories.

News of two Famous Five productions. Am I the only one who sees the major flaw in looking at the characters' lives decades later? Read more... ). Fan Lucy Mangan weighs in on the subject.

The Series Fic yahoo group - dedicated to exploring British children's series fiction of the 20th and 21st century.
feather_ghyll: Black and white body shot a row of ballet dancers (Ballet girls)
Noel Streatfeild news and resources:

Ballet Shoes to be made into a feature length drama to air on BBC One later this year - read the press release. I got the heads up from Digital Spy. This could be great, the BBC, after all, should be able to handle this sort of material in its sleep, but it rather depends on who they cast to play the Fossils and what the director gets out of them.

h2g2 has an overview of the 'Shoes' "series" (which was artificially created as such, though some of them are obviously connected, says the person who never could read 'The Bell Family', in fact I'm not sure if I didn't give up and give it away.)

For more, there's this well-presented Noel Streatfeild site: http://www.whitegauntlet.com.au/noelstreatfeild/

Discussion - girls in fiction and the women writing it

Girl wonders
As Nancy Drew returns to the screen, Laura Barton remembers the fictional female heroes who bested the boys, bucked convention and shaped her childhood

Were you an Ann or a George? (Plus, it may be made more explicit in later books, because, yes, I am of the Nancy Drew Files/strawberry blonde generation, but is Ned Nickerson not 'the love interest' and sidekick to Nancy? Sadly, there's no mention of the Swallows and Amazons girls in this article.)

Editorial anonymous, a children's book editor, discusses the question of whether children's books are a girls' club and if so why? This mainly refers to modern children's literature.

I recommend
Essay/Discussion: Twins, part two
by [livejournal.com profile] sangerin, which focuses on the twins of the Abbey Girls and Chalet School series.

Malcolm Saville resources:

The Malcolm Saville centenary website, through which I discovered 'Three Towers in Tuscany' is the first of a sequel, which ends with 'Marston Baines - Master Spy'. My delight at the fact that there are more books and that one of them has such a title cannot be textually rendered.

Quizzes:

http://www.funtrivia.com/quizzes/literature/specific_subjects__themes/childrens_literature.html

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