I first read this aged about 6 I think and can still remember the feeling of discovering it for the first time (in reply to comments suggesting it be left for the over-10s: I'd say as with everything, it depends on the child but keen readers will almost certainly want to read it much sooner than ...
Melodrama! Oh, the poor, poor orphans! This isn't quite up to par with Streatfeild's best writing but is still a decent, if over dramatic, tale of orphans who overcome tragedy. Having lived a gypsy-type life with their Polish mother and British father, who ran away from his stiff upper-lip fam...
In this story, the Winter family moves from England to the US for six months so that the father can recover from an accident in the nice southern California weather. Coming from war-ravaged London where food is still rationed even though the war (WWII) has been over for a couple of years, the Win...
A Noel Streatfeild I never read as a child! First time reading it now - I have The Circus is Coming new to read as well, hooray :)I enjoyed this, but I didn't love it quite as much as her dancing books. Maybe also it's me coming to this fresh as an adult and not reading it with childhood nostalgi...
i have been a great fan of the theatre ever since i was a child. i even took a few classes on theatre last year. so it wasn't a very great surprise when this book was the the first to catch my eye on my to the library this week. i had never heard of noel streatfield until i saw this book, but aft...
Streatfeild's books are often good to inspire kids to be the best that they can be in their chosen field of interest, and to teach them not to settle for mediocrity - if something is worth doing, it is worth doing well. It's probably worth 4.5 stars. I found it thoroughly satisfying to read. The ...
It had been hot and crowded in their part of London in August. Being on the outside of London where it was easy to hire a boat and go on the river, crowds of people came down every day on bicycles, in buses and in trains, and it was not nice for the people who lived in the neighbourhood, because ...
The notices said such things as “the evening really belonged to little Miss Brain.” “This latest shoot from the Warren tree seems to hold promise of bearing a crop of talent unusual even from a branch from this parent stem.” The other type of paper, which did not write in that grand way, said suc...