What do You think about Ballet Shoes (2003)?
This heart-warming story of three baby girls adopted by an eccentric professor and then abandoned to the care of several maternal figures is strongly reminiscent of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. Like Alcott’s coming of age novel, this story written and set in the 1930's depression-era London charts the childhood and youth of the girls and describes how, together with their guardians, they try to eke out a genteel lifestyle while tottering at the edge of poverty in the long absence of their father figure, and how in spite of all their deprivations they grow to discover and pursue their individual hopes and dreams. The prose has a simple elegance. The descriptions are full and vivid, with lots of pretty details about clothes, food, walks, auditions, performances, and everything else. Streatfeild captures very realistically the psychology of the little girls, and much is made of seemingly simple matters like what to wear to an audition and how much pocket money they should keep for themselves after contributing to the household income with the money earned from stage performances.I listened to the audio book version read by Elizabeth Sastre. She made a remarkable job of it. Her gentle, refined, sympathetic voice reflects exactly the tone of the novel. Each of the characters is given a distinct voice and brought to vivid life, from the stern and matronly Nana (their nanny) and the anxious and well-meaning Sylvia (their official guardian), to the graceful eldest child Pauline, the more masculine and practical Petrova and the childish yet cutely determined baby of the family, Posy.A truly beautiful and magical read for children and adults alike.
—Pixie Dust
A long-running favourite of my youth, I was inspired to re-read this when I saw the 2007 BBC version of this I decided to hunt up my copy to re-read. This is the story of three sisters, collected by a fossil hunter (GUM or Great Uncle Matthew) and left with his niece Sylvia (aka Garnie for Guardian) and her Nanny and assorted servants. The three grow up, finding themselves very poor. They take in paying guests to make ends meet and these people help the three girls with their education. One of the things that they do to help is have the girls enrolled in a stage school where at least two of them learn skills useful for their future. They go through trials and tribulations and have to make some very adult decisions through the story.It's a kids' story so some things are skimmed rather than explored in real depth but there is a lot more depth in this than you find in many stories and it's interesting to see the empowering qualities of this even at it's age. I have to wonder did we progress much since this interwar story.
—Deirdre
My mother doesn't like to read. She's just not that into it, never has been. I, on the other hand, read every day and have, ever since the age of 6. Imagine my surprise, as a 10 year old, when she gave me a copy of "Ballet Shoes" and told me it was her favorite book as a child. During this time, I was obsessed with C.S. Lewis and reading "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" for what felt like the 40th time. But, still, my mother had given me a book, so, the least I could do was read it, right? I'm writing this review after re-reading "Ballet Shoes" yesterday. My friends Bill and Elaine have a four year old who I sometimes watch for them, and I was trying to think up creative alternatives to watching "Ratatouille" for the 17th time. So, I started rifling through my old books and the Fossil sisters literally fell into my lap. I read the first few pages, laughed more than I remembered laughing as a child when GUM says to his 16 year old neice Sylvia "I thought all women liked babies?" as he presents her an orphan he's recently rescued. Like the best children's fiction, "Ballet Shoes" not only holds up well with age, but becomes a completely different book when you revisit it as an adult. The book was published sometime in the 1930's, and while mostly conservative, features two female professors who are unmarried and lived together. If a book published today featured characters like that, it would be all over the media and banished from some elementary schools. What is lovely about Streatfield's writing is that, as a child, it didn't even occur to me that it would be unusual for Dr. Jakes and Dr. Smith to live together and not be married. And as an adult? It matters even less. Dr. Jake's Shakespeare obsession and Dr. Smith's gentle nature are far more interesting as to what these women do when they're not teaching the Fossil sisters. The last line of the book "If other girls had to be one of us, which would they choose?" was a question I pondered many a nights as I drifted off to sleep. Sweet, , people pleaser Pauline? Stubborn, pragmatic Petrova? Self involved, brilliant Posy? As a child, my answer was almost always Petrova, not wanting to seem conceited or over ambitious. But as an adult, I don't know that I could decide. I should read the book again before I made a decision.
—Kristen Boers
