feather_ghyll

03:37 pm: REVIEW: Netherdale For Ever
Just watched the Queen's semi-finals. ( Read more... )

Netherdale For Ever: Theodora Wilson Wilson. The Swarthmore Press Ltd.

Five minutes Googling tells me that Wilson Wilson (yes, really) was a radical, pacifist Quakeress. All her books were published in the twentieth century, She lived from c1865 to 1941, and Netherdale For Ever was published in 1919. There's a reason I looked that last fact up. (I'm not sre whether my copy is that old, and that's not the reason).( Read more... )

Tags: authors: w, genre: family story, genre: village life, grass court season 2009, links, links: authors, review: book, review: wilson wilson, sports: tennis, theodora wilson wilson

06:45 pm: LINKS: all sorts!
A collection of links, some of them related to recent posts and things of interest, some that I came across quite some time ago.

Swallows and Amazons memorobilia here!

A critical review of Diana Wynne Jones's The Game (in lieu of my thoughts which I never did write up) by a DWJ fan.

Author Hilary Mantel talks about looking for female role models in 19th century novels
with specific reference to Jo March, Katy Carr and Jane Eyre, discussiong her childish reaction to them, and some other aspects, such as the picture of contemporary London and interaction with real personages in What Katy Did Next.

A nice description of 'Remembering my best find'. I don't hink I can remember a best find so clearly, but I do know from experience that it's always worth trying even the least promising shop.

A review of the production of Daisy Pulls it Off that I saw.

Greyladies a new publishing venture that's just registered on me radar - Girls Gone By's older sister? - that I'm definitely interested in.

Wikipedia's potted history of Josephine Elder.

RTA: I nearly forgot, Happy Easter!

Tags: adult books, arthur ransome, authors: e, authors: r, authors: w, book-shopping, denise deegan, diana wynne jones, josephine elder, links, links: authors, links: discussion, links: memorabilia, links: personal experience, links: publishers, links: resources, links: reviews, play: daisy pulls it off, series: katy, series: swallows and amazons

06:09 pm: REVIEW: Dimsie Carries On
Dimsie Carries On: Dorita Fairlie Bruce Oxford University Press

This is my post about buying the Dimises I've been reading and reviewing of late. (Tes, it can easily take over six months between the purchase of a book and the reading of it in my world.) Closer scrutiny has shown that I've got reprints, so there must have been other dust jackets originally. Even closer scrutiny (ie the dust jacket breaking up somewhat) has revealed that it's two sided, the other side was a dust jacket for another book entirely (Adventure for Two by Elsie J. Oxenham). I don't think I've come across that before!

( To the book )

Tags: authors: f, celtic setting: scotland, discussion: history of girls' stories, discussion: second world war, dorita fairlie bruce, genre: old girls' adventure, genre: romance, links: authors, review: book, review: fairlie bruce, series: dimsie, series: springdale

09:00 am: REVIEW: Just Four Girls
Just Four Girls: Charles Herbert. The Leisure Library.

I don't think I've ever read a school story like this. ( Read more... )

Tags: authors: h, charles herbert, discussion: headmistresses, discussion: practical jokes, genre: school story, links: authors, review: book, review: c herbert, sports: rowing, the extraordinary new girl

09:23 pm: REVIEW: The Girls of King's Royal
The Girls of Kings Royal: L. T. Meade. Chambers 1913

My first L. T Meade, and having some idea of her importance in terms of girls' stories, I was very curious about it, but having finished the book, I can't say I was that impressed. I think I was meant to be uplifted by the moral tone, but I was more flummoxed by its silliness than anything and quite the resistant reader.

"Thou wilt not point the wanton toe in my presence." (p 61)

"I have forgotten nothing," she said, "I have given up nothing. Be careful how you treat me. The lion sometimes lies down and sleeps but he awakens with renewed strength. Such is the case with Cora St. John." (p 213)
( Read more... )

Tags: authors: m, genre: school story, l.t. meade, links: authors, review: book review: meade

06:10 pm: REVIEW: A Girl of Mettle
A Girl of Mettle: Frances West. Collins.

Amazon dates this book at 1908 and 1922 - there's no indication which my copy is, or whether it was published at another time entirely. My research (Googling) doesn't bring up much on Frances West and this book. But I'm assuming that she should not be confused with a mid-nineteenth century namesake and a more recent namesake who writes romance. Still, it's a disappointment to discover that - like Desmond Skirrow who was the first children's book author I looked up online - this Frances West didn't write anything else (okay, Skirrow did write more, but it was for adults), because I enjoyed this.

In one sense it's the oft-told story of a child getting through the barriers of a disapproving relative, with all the symbolism of life and rebirth that that entails, ( Read more... )

Tags: authors: w. frances west, desmond skirrow, genre: family story, links: authors, review: book, review: west

06:03 pm: DISCUSSION: D.E. Stevenson, Ballet Shoes and me
The weekend before last weekend - sorry, this post has been one of the things I've never got round to sitting down and finishing until now - I saw a copy of 'Amberwell' by D. E. Stevenson with a dust jacket. As it was in a second-hand book shop, I didn't even pick it up, let alone look at the price. I have a hardback of my own, one that I bought thinking it was a children's book, perhaps if it had had a dust jacket I'd have been disabused of the notion. At first, the story is about a generation of children living in a house named Amberwell, but it follows them as they grow up and lead lives that would have been difficult even without the outbreak of the second world war, and, in fact, adult problems and mistakes blight their childhoods anyhow. So it's not a children's book at all. I was probably too young for it when I read it, because the bitterness and disappointments that the characters faced, and, maybe, the lack of a clear protagonist threw me. I read the sequel several years later and that may have been too long a wait, I'd reread 'Amberwell' at least once since, and 'Summerhills' felt like a different novel, and it lacked the focus on a place, although it did resolve some of the unfinished strands of the first book.

My favourite Stevenson book - so far, I've only read a handful of hers, and annoyingly haven't seen any new-to-me copies lately - is 'Miss Buncle's Book', which doesn't have that twist of, well, bitterness that's in 'Amberwell'. It's about a spinster and the village that she lives in. Our heroine Barbara is neither young nor middle aged, IIRC, and loves her village, but has something in her that can make her see it with a slightly removed perspective. And so she starts to write a book about it, a shadow narrative about the village's life, that imputes motives and expands mysteries, not nastily, because Barbara Buncle is a darling. But the story grows in the telling, as stories do, and contains a fantastical element - and has to be published. Once it is, Barbara in a tricky position. She's changed in the writing of her book and the book has changed her village.

It's altogether charming, I loved the book-within-a-book aspect and insight into the writing process. I've read one of the sequels, which isn't so much lesser as feeling quite different. Sequels that revisit characters' lives are a trait of Stevenson's (who, yes, is related to Robert Louis), so although not all the books are linked in an Oxenham or Brent-Dyer way, you do sometimes get the opportunity to find out what happened next. It's apt that not all the books are linked, some of them are quite different - you never know how light the mood will be with her, but their setting is always important.

Last weekend too, I reread 'Ballet Shoes', which was fun (particularly Posy's monomania for ballet). I was going to review it, but my notes were a little harsh. The thing is, I can't remember when I did read 'Ballet Shoes' first, but I suspect I was a teenager and not a child, so I didn't grow up with it, and the ballet dancer I took to heart young was Veronica Weston, and the young performers, the enterprising Blue Door theatre group. As such, even the first time I read Ballet Shoes, I was probably distanced, which is partly why I didn't empathise with any of the Fossils exactly, and found them a little quaint because there's this mix of the ordinary and the extraordinary. Usually, difference of period or location doesn't phase me but this time it did, especially their genteel poverty (oh, Gum, you selfish man!). Also, I'd have liked more detail on the ballet school's life, although I know that the story's about the Fossils, their family circle and their lodgers. I've also got 'The Painted Garden' (there's a mention of 'The Secret Garden' in 'Ballet Shoes', was it Streatfeild's favourite book?) to read, now there's a book I ought to reread, ('The Secret Garden') though I don't know if I have a copy.

What I suppose I'm getting at is how much subjective experience informs whether I take a book to heart. It all depends so much on what books are available in your childhood, in libraries or in shops, and whether your reading age is a bit beyond your actual or emotional age (or if you're reading something pitched younger, whereas if I had read 'Ballet Shoes' when I was closer to the girls' age, it might be one of my favourite books). Of course, there are other reasons to love books, and this blog is all about books that transcend reading age.

A D.E Stevenson page and another.

Tags: adult books, author: stevenson, author: streatfeild, book-shopping, d. e. stevenson, discussion: personal, genre: family story, genre: future ballerina, genre: stage school, links, links: authors, noel streatfeild, overview: author, overview: book, series: streatfeild's shoes

03:21 pm: REVIEW: The Rivals of Maidenhurst
I have been half thinking about using some sort of rating system for my book reviews. Would it be useful? Is it too much bother - I suspect I'd get bogged down by guilt at my own subjectivity, and it would have to be something as stark as poor, all right, good and must read? Anyway, if I were to institute a rating system, this would get the lowest rating.

The Rivals of Maidenhurst by Dorothy M. Parkin. Nelson, premier series.

( Read more... )

Googling informed me that Folly magazine considered this at least a contender for an awful book award, but this cached (?) obituary of Dorothy Clewes reveals that Rivals was Clewes (nee Parkin)'s first novel and was published in 1925 when she was 18, which explains a lot. (Not what publisher Nelson was thinking, really, but still). She went on to write books that, by my recollection, were markedly better.

Tags: authors: c, authors: p, dorothy clewes, dorothy m. parkin, genre: school story, links: authors, review: book, review: parkin, the 07 hay haul

02:39 pm: LINKS: Mixed bag today.
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 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).

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.

Tags: arthur ransome, authors: b, authors: l, authors: r, authors: s, discussion: chalet girls, discussion: personal, elinor m. brent-dyer, elizabeth tarrant, enid blyton, eric leyland, links, links: authors, links: discussion, links: lists, links: news, noel streatfeild, series: chalet school, series: famous five, series: streatfeild's shoes, sylvia little

02:58 pm: DISCUSSION: Is Cabot the new Montgomery?
Is Meg Cabot the L. M. Montgomery of her generation? In the future, will daughters read their mothers' copies of her books and pass them on to their own daughters? Is there another author who fits that bill?

The comparison between the writers, and thus these non-deadly serious questions, arose in my mind partly because of various discussions I've seen on lj about how to define 'girls' fiction' - when you think about it, the definition can be as broad as you like. (I recently read a book where someone in her mid-twenties was described as a girl. I am not sure if that is heartening or patronising.) It's also and perhaps mainly because I've read a lot of both's books of late - over the last year, I've read Cabot's All American Girl, Size 12 is Not Fat and The Queen of Babble and more (to come: reviews of Nicola and the Viscount and Teen Idol), because her books seem to pop up a lot in charity shops and the like. Actually, that may argue against them being kind of book mothers keep to pass on. I tend to pass on 'disposable' books to charity shops, I assume that so do other people. Given the fact that Cabot is seen as a fluffy YA writer, maybe readers 'outgrow' her. Or maybe this is an example of this generation of young girls' attention deficit disorder. Though I do believe that Cabot has a tendency to produce quantity over quality, sometimes, I've kept all my copies of her books, purchased second or first hand.

Of Montgomery's work, most recently, I've read Pat of Beech House and The Blue Castle (the last is definitely recommended, it's a gem) and I want to read the former's sequel very much. I grew up loving the 'Anne' series and made the acquaintance of 'Emily' at college.

So what similarities do I see? Both are popular - although I haven't read any of Cabot's signature books, The Princess Diary series, I have seen the movie adaptations, which just emphasises how very, very popular she is. Both write heroine-centric books for girls, with a tendency toward series (the Anne and Emily books are what Montgomery is best known for) that inspire loyalty. They're also interested in character growth - which seperates them from more static serials. Readers do get to know what happens next.

The first Cabot books I read were the Mediator series, back when they were published under the pen-name Jenny Carroll. Though there's a supernatural twist, they have elements to be seen in most of Cabot's books, a likeable, good-hearted heroine who needs to learn something (IMO Susannah seems to devolve into more of a ditz the longer the series goes on), a delicious love interest (oh, Jesse, Jesse, Jesse), a finger on the popculture pulse (The Mediator series would probably not have existed without Buffy and Teen Idol confirms that Cabot knew of the show ). There's also a keen sensitivity to the Queen Bee system of hierarchy imposed among girls and women. The Mediator books are set in a high school, but similar ground is examined in The News Chronicle series, set at a New York newspaper.

Although both writers are known as children's writers, they've also got books for older readers - the divide is less sharp in Montgomery's books, because her series follow her heroines into adulthood (see the Anne series). In fact, the description of Anne of Green Gables as a children's book seems to have been foisted upon it in recent years.

The packaging of the adult Cabot books is interesting in this regard, as is the content. They're sold as chicklit, but the Princess Diary connection is not ignored. How could it be? She's less circumspect than Montgomery was about sex - it's a different different era - although, for instance, the News Chronicle series is fluffier, cuter and more likely to close the bedroom door early than a lot of other chick lit, and when you see the enclosed fan comments in her kids' books, you understand why. Having said that, as a reviewer reminded me, Montgomery does cover unfluffy events in The Blue Castle.

Delicious heroes aside, I had tended to think of Cabot's books as enjoyable froth, but disposable, something to be jumped on if I saw it cheap in a charity shop, but Size 12 is Not Fat, a Heather Wells mystery and the first in a series hooked me, mixing a slow-burn love story, with the reinvention of a former pop star as an independent grown-up and amateur sleuth. I came to Cabot as an adult, admittedly one who reads a lot of children's and girls' literature still, but as only a part-time member of the target audience, while like most of her readership over the years, I read Montgomery first as a child, returned to her growing up and am rediscovering her as I try to complete my collection now. So I can pose the questions that I did at the outset, but I'm in no place to answer them, and probably time will do so for me. After all, there must have been other writers that readers thought might join the canonical girls' library, as Montgomery joined Little Women and Daddy-Long-Legs and What Katy Did (my chronology is probably severely off and my selection quirky), but they didn't, or they didn't make it internationally. Thoughts?

Links, resources, the usual.

[Anne of Green Gables] was published in 1908 and became an instant success, selling more than 19,000 copies in 5 months.

Wikipedia claims 'It was written as fiction for readers of all ages, but in recent decades has been considered a children's book. '

Anne of Green Gables encyclopedia

Which heroine are you?

Which L.M. Montgomery Heroine are You?

How Anne am I?

How Anne are You?</a>

More LMM games here.

An L M Montgomery resource page

Discussion of The Blue Castle at a book reading comm and another on Anne and Diana's relationship.


[Meg Cabot] has more than 15 million copies of her books — children's, young adult, and adult — in print worldwide.

Meg Cabot interview that covers the difficulties of being a popular YA author (who is read by kids) and an adult writer, in terms of the crossover readership, sex in the books and her own language, and it touches on the issues of quality and quantity.
http://www.harf.lib.md.us/readers/archive_meet_the_author/jens_cabot_feb06.htm conducted by Jennifer Vido.

And here she writes in her blog about revision: http://www.megcabot.com/diary/?p=520
http://www.megcabot.com/diary/?p=521
It was cruel irony that just as I was seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for my last set of revisions, a new set came in.

I realize this is entirely my own fault for writing so much, and I have only myself to blame. The only answer, obviously, is to stop writing so much.
And believe me, I’ve tried….

But every time I try to take a break, I get some new idea for a book or a series, and I’m like, “Dang, that would be so cool,” and I have to get out of the pool and start writing it.

Tags: authors: c, authors: m, discussion: history of girls' stories, genre: mystery, genre: orphan adopted, genre: romance, genre: supernatural, l. m. montgomery, links, links: authors, links: quiz, links: resources, meg cabot, series: anne, series: emily, series: the mediator, series: the princess diaries