No. 75 - Ballet Shoes

So, here we are, officially at no.75, a quarter of the way through this journey! I've been pretty motivated since January to read and write more, so hopefully I can keep this pace up and read and share lots of fab books this year! 

Today I want to talk to you about Noel Streatfeild's classic story Ballet Shoes, published in 1936. Last year I watched the most lovely adaptation of the story on the tele, starring Emma Watson, Emelia Fox and Victoria Wood, amongst others. The film was beautiful, and the story enchanting, with the screenplay written by Heidi Thomas, who writes Call the Midwife, and recently adapted Little Women for the BBC. So having enjoyed this so much, I was excited to read Ballet Shoes. For those of you who don't know the story it is all about the Fossil sisters, Pauline, Petrova and Posy. They are each found and adopted as babies by the eccentric explorer and fossil collector Gum, who sends them back to England to live with his niece and her nanny in London. It soon becomes apparent that Gum is not coming home for a very long time, even presumed missing at one point, and so Sylvia and Nana are left to bring up the three girls themselves. Money is tight and it is suggested that the girls get training in something that will help them make a living when they are older, so they start attending The Children's Academy of Dancing and Acting. Streatfeild, who trained at RADA, knew a thing or two about the theatre, and it is very apparent that she is comfortable writing about this world.

The plot is slightly different to the adaptation I was familiar with, but the characters were certainly the same. Nana is fussy and a stickler for sensibleness, routine and order in her Nurseries. Sylvia, known to the girls as Garnie, a portmanteau of Guardian and Auntie, is a timid, sad lady, who only wants the best for her girls, and despairs when she cannot provide for them. Pauline, the eldest of the Fossil sisters was found at sea after a shipwreck. She takes to acting and loves to perform, in particular recitation. Her talent takes her far, though causes problems at times, especially when she lets it go to her head! Petrova, found in Russia, therefore given a Russian name, is not at all interested in being on the stage. She would much rather fiddle with engines and fly aeroplanes. However, she grits her teeth and gets through performance after performance, so that she can give Garnie some money towards their upkeep. The littlest Fossil, Posy, was abandoned by her dancer mother with a pair of ballet shoes, so is destined to be a ballerina. She is such a good dancer in fact, that she gets private lessons from the Russian ballerina who owns the Academy. She is almost heartless in her absolute need to be the very best, which as it turns out is not a bad thing! Alongside the girl's and their wards, there are some other lovely characters, my favourite being the two lady doctors who take lodgings in Gum's big house. They are not medical doctors, but doctors of literature and mathematics, and so take it upon themselves to educate the girls. There is also the rather glamorous Theo Dane, another boarder, who teaches ballet at the Academy. And finally, lodging with Sylvia and the Fossil's are Mr and Mrs Simpson. In the tele adaptation there was no Mrs Simpson, and Mr Simpson acted as the love interest/father figure. I was quite glad to see that this was not the case in the book. The plot is purely centred around the girls and nothing else.

Cleverly, Streatfeild has written some wonderfully strong female characters in this book. Rather like Louisa May Alcott in Little Women, she has managed to create a tight knit female family unit, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. The only male characters that exist are those in the theatre industry, or at the Council, and of course Mr Simpson and Gum. However, Mr Simpson has quite a stereotypical male role, helping the girls out financially, and teaching Petrova all about cars and planes. And Gum of course is pretty much non-existent for the entire story! In fact he is talked about with distaste by Nana, and considered a bit of a let down! By the end of the book Streatfeild has created three thoroughly independent young ladies, all pursuing their own dreams and their own interests, even Petrova, who ventures where many women at that time had not. The book ends with the question "I wonder... If other girls had to be one of us, which one of us they'd choose to be?" And what a choice for the girl reader; ballerina, actress, or pilot. I know which one i'd choose!

Throughout the book the Fossil sisters vow to get their names in the history books, and not because of something their Grandfathers did, but because of what they achieved themselves. I would say that this is a very appropriate sentiment at the moment, what with the trend in books that aim to encourage girl's to follow their dreams, and empower them with stories of women who have. Streatfeild's girls could quite easily be added to the biographies in these books, as women who raised themselves up from nothing, not even knowing their own parentage, and followed their dreams.

Thanks for reading, L x

Next up, The Velevteen Rabbit

No. 76 - The London Eye Mystery

Hi there, me again! Another book review for you! The first official one of 2018 in fact! This time i'm taking a look at The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd.

Prior to this project I had ashamedly never heard of Siobhan Dowd, and it wasn't until I did a little research for this post that I discovered Patrick Ness's A Monster Calls was in fact Dowd's story, and he wrote it for her after her death. That was a lovely little factoid, plus I also found out that Robin Stevens (of Murder Most Unladylike fame) has written the sequel to The London Eye Mystery, The Guggenheim Mystery, based on Dowd's original ideas too. So there's lots of literary love going on there! Hurrah!

Obviously being a mystery story I can't, and won't, give away too much! Our narrator, Ted, has Asperger's. He struggles with reading body language and social interactions, but knows everything there is to know about meteorology. He dreams of becoming a meteorologist, and the book is littered with weather facts and references, which are a really interesting aside to main the story. That's also how Ted's disability is treated, as an aside. It is never named, sometimes called Ted's syndrome, or as Ted puts it, his brain just runs on a different operating system to everyone else's. Personally I can't decide on whether not naming Ted's Asperger's is a bad thing or not? He often makes references to the way he deals with situations using tools he has been given by a teacher, especially when recognising emotions in others. He also has physical reactions to stressful situations, which are pointed out all the way through the book. But these things this are never attributed to his Asperger's, just noted, and we recognise him as being different, but not necessarily in a bad way. Ted uses his different operating system to solve the mystery in a way no one else could, just like Christopher Boone, in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightime. Books like these highlight the value of thinking slightly differently and hopefully encouraging child readers on the Autistic spectrum to value their differences and not see them as a disability. It may also help children understand more about Autism if they come across it in others. So maybe, by not specifically pointing out that Ted has Asperger's, Dowd has very cleverly made the subject so much more accessible.

When Ted's Aunt Gloria and cousin Salim come to stay there is one thing, as a tourist to London, that Salim wants to do. He wants to ride the London Eye! Ted and his sister Kat have been up before and both agree that it's an amazing experience, Ted explaining about the wheel's engineering, and Kat excitedly telling Salim about the views. It's agreed and the three of them set out for the Eye the next day. Whilst queuing to buy their tickets a stranger offers them his, saying that he's changed his mind and didn't fancy it, claiming to be claustrophobic. As there is just one ticket, and Ted and Kat have been up before, they let Salim board the pod in place of the strange man. Ted notes the time, 11.32, knowing that Salim will be back done in precisely 30 minutes. Just as Ted predicts at 12.02 Salim's pod touches down, the doors open, but Salim is nowhere to be seen.....

That's all i'm going to say, so you'll have to read it if you want to know what happens next! Has Salim vanished into thin air? Was he hiding under the seat in the pod hoping to go round again? Had Ted got the time wrong? Or did he spontaneously combust? Ted must consider all these potential scenarios and more! With the help of his sister Kat, can he solve the London Eye Mystery and bring Salim home?

Thanks for reading, L x

Next up, Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfield.