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Aww man. I always feel like crying when I finish this book.
Full review to come.
Full review to come.
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Shoes #1
Ballet Shoes
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Three orphan girls. A pair of pink slippers. A lifetime in the spotlight. Read the classic that has captivated generations!Pauline, Petrova, and Posy love their quiet life together. They are orphans who have been raised as sisters, and when their new family needs money, the girls want to help. They decide to join the Children's Academy of Dancing and Stage Training to earn their keep. Each girl works hard following her dream. Pauline is destined for the movies. Posy is a born dancer. And Petrova? She finds she'd rather be a pilot than perform a pirouette.This beautiful children's classic is perfect for girls who love to dream about ballet, friendship, and finding their own special talents. Adult readers may remember them as the "Shoes" books from You've Got Mail !
0 pages, Audio CD
First published January 1,1936
This edition
- Format
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0 pages, Audio CD
- Published
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January 1, 2004 by Listening Library
- ISBN
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9781400094974
- ASIN
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1400094976
- Language
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English
Characters More characters
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Pauline Fossil
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Petrova Fossil
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Posy Fossil
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About the author
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Mary Noel Streatfeild, known as Noel Streatfeild, was an author best known and loved for her children's books, including Ballet Shoes and Circus Shoes. She also wrote romances under the pseudonym Susan Scarlett.
She was born on Christmas Eve, 1895, the daughter of William Champion Streatfeild and Janet Venn and the second of six children to be born to the couple. Sister Ruth was the oldest, after Noel came Barbara, William ('Bill'), Joyce (who died of TB prior to her second birthday) and Richenda. Ruth and Noel attended Hastings and St. Leonard's Ladies' College in 1910. As an adult, she began theater work, and spent approximately 10 years in the theater.
During the Great War, in 1915 Noel worked first as a volunteer in a soldier's hospital kitchen near Eastbourne Vicarage and later produced two plays with her sister Ruth. When things took a turn for the worse on the Front in 1916 she moved to London and obtained a job making munitions in Woolwich Arsenal. At the end of the war in January 1919, Noel enrolled at the Academy of Dramatic Art (later Royal Academy) in London.
In 1930, she began writing her first adult novel, The Whicharts, published in 1931. In June 1932, she was elected to membership of PEN. Early in 1936, Mabel Carey, children's editor of J. M. Dent and Sons, asks Noel to write a children's story about the theatre, which led to Noel completing Ballet Shoes in mid-1936. In 28 September 1936, when Ballet Shoes was published, it became an immediate best seller.
According to Angela Bull, Ballet Shoes was a reworked version of The Whicharts. Elder sister Ruth Gervis illustrated the book, which was published on the 28th September, 1936. At the time, the plot and general 'attitude' of the book was highly original, and destined to provide an outline for countless other ballet books down the years until this day. The first known book to be set at a stage school, the first ballet story to be set in London, the first to feature upper middle class society, the first to show the limits of amateurism and possibly the first to show children as self-reliant, able to survive without running to grownups when things went wrong.
In 1937, Noel traveled with Bertram Mills Circus to research The Circus is Coming (also known as Circus Shoes). She won the Carnegie gold medal in February 1939 for this book. In 1940, World War II began, and Noel began war-related work from 1940-1945. During this time, she wrote four adult novels, five children's books, nine romances, and innumerable articles and short stories. On May 10th, 1941, her flat was destroyed by a bomb. Shortly after WWII is over, in 1947, Noel traveled to America to research film studios for her book The Painted Garden. In 1949, she began delivering lectures on children's books. Between 1949 and 1953, her plays, The Bell Family radio serials played on the Children's Hour and were frequently voted top play of the year.
Early in 1960s, she decided to stop writing adult novels, but did write some autobiographical novels, such as A Vicarage Family in 1963. She also had written 12 romance novels under the pen name "Susan Scarlett." Her children's books number at least 58 titles. From July to December 1979, she suffered a series of small strokes and moved into a nursing home. In 1983, she received the honor Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). On 11 September 1986, she passed away in a nursing home.
She was born on Christmas Eve, 1895, the daughter of William Champion Streatfeild and Janet Venn and the second of six children to be born to the couple. Sister Ruth was the oldest, after Noel came Barbara, William ('Bill'), Joyce (who died of TB prior to her second birthday) and Richenda. Ruth and Noel attended Hastings and St. Leonard's Ladies' College in 1910. As an adult, she began theater work, and spent approximately 10 years in the theater.
During the Great War, in 1915 Noel worked first as a volunteer in a soldier's hospital kitchen near Eastbourne Vicarage and later produced two plays with her sister Ruth. When things took a turn for the worse on the Front in 1916 she moved to London and obtained a job making munitions in Woolwich Arsenal. At the end of the war in January 1919, Noel enrolled at the Academy of Dramatic Art (later Royal Academy) in London.
In 1930, she began writing her first adult novel, The Whicharts, published in 1931. In June 1932, she was elected to membership of PEN. Early in 1936, Mabel Carey, children's editor of J. M. Dent and Sons, asks Noel to write a children's story about the theatre, which led to Noel completing Ballet Shoes in mid-1936. In 28 September 1936, when Ballet Shoes was published, it became an immediate best seller.
According to Angela Bull, Ballet Shoes was a reworked version of The Whicharts. Elder sister Ruth Gervis illustrated the book, which was published on the 28th September, 1936. At the time, the plot and general 'attitude' of the book was highly original, and destined to provide an outline for countless other ballet books down the years until this day. The first known book to be set at a stage school, the first ballet story to be set in London, the first to feature upper middle class society, the first to show the limits of amateurism and possibly the first to show children as self-reliant, able to survive without running to grownups when things went wrong.
In 1937, Noel traveled with Bertram Mills Circus to research The Circus is Coming (also known as Circus Shoes). She won the Carnegie gold medal in February 1939 for this book. In 1940, World War II began, and Noel began war-related work from 1940-1945. During this time, she wrote four adult novels, five children's books, nine romances, and innumerable articles and short stories. On May 10th, 1941, her flat was destroyed by a bomb. Shortly after WWII is over, in 1947, Noel traveled to America to research film studios for her book The Painted Garden. In 1949, she began delivering lectures on children's books. Between 1949 and 1953, her plays, The Bell Family radio serials played on the Children's Hour and were frequently voted top play of the year.
Early in 1960s, she decided to stop writing adult novels, but did write some autobiographical novels, such as A Vicarage Family in 1963. She also had written 12 romance novels under the pen name "Susan Scarlett." Her children's books number at least 58 titles. From July to December 1979, she suffered a series of small strokes and moved into a nursing home. In 1983, she received the honor Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). On 11 September 1986, she passed away in a nursing home.
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Rating(3.9 / 5.0, 99 votes)
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3.5 stars. Such a delight! I enjoyed seeing how this simple tale of three adopted sisters would unfold.
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I loved this book. When I bought a second hand Portuguese version I didn't know it was the one mentioned in the iconic scene in "you've got mail".. It's such a lovely coulerful story. Wich I liked most was the fact that a group of completely strangers bounded to take care of the education of three little orphan girls. It was a very modern and real family. Also I don't understand why some people find it strange for children to work at the stage to help the family. Come on... They had so much health, education and welfare and today there are lots and lots of children working on TV and fashion with almost no public control and only to be famous... How come is it better?
Appart from that, it's a simple but not very childish writing with captured me.. The end is a little bit odd and rushed but leaves a lot to imagination...
Appart from that, it's a simple but not very childish writing with captured me.. The end is a little bit odd and rushed but leaves a lot to imagination...
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Ballet Shoes is a thoroughly enjoyable book about three girls who are willing to work hard and sacrifice to make their dreams come true. A wonderful story about family relationships and commitment. Set during the depression of the 1930s the reader gets a real since of what life for these girls, working on the stage to help pay the bills, would have been like.
After reading the book I picked up a copy of the DVD at the library. While the movie really is as charming as the book they did take some great liberties with the story line. Some characters were omitted or had their story changed in order to add a love story to the movie.
After reading the book I picked up a copy of the DVD at the library. While the movie really is as charming as the book they did take some great liberties with the story line. Some characters were omitted or had their story changed in order to add a love story to the movie.
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One of my ultimate comfort novels. If I had a choice, I’d be Posy - who would you be?
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Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild is one of The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read https://www.theguardian.com/books/200... and on the Realini’s Best 250 Novels list available at http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/u...
More recently, they have been placed at the 927th place on The Greatest Books of All Time site
9 out of 10
Pauline, Petrova and Posy Fossil are children in this impressive narrative and yet they could be role models for so many adults, with their formidable arsenal of character strengths – courage, resilience, munificence, temperance, modesty – yes, Pauline and Posy have a very high opinion of their talents, but that is for good reason, and the former does have a phase during which she is quite arrogant, but that will pass – appreciation of beauty and excellence, humor, creativity, love of learning, sagesse, curiosity…
They have each been found as a baby by Matthew Brown, the Great-Uncle Matthew, nicknamed Gum, the latter starts as an important role model – who will find one baby, deciding to take him or her home, then a second infant and the same willingness to protect is displayed, only to have a third one more or less adopted- only to become a figure that displays some recklessness and may end up as a negative personage, if not altogether horrid, in spite of the baffling treatment he receives from the author.
In other words, this is where standards have surely changed from one hundred years ago to today – it is evident throughout the saga that we have come a long way, children were allowed to work at the age of twelve, officially, after they had received a permit, and many others would start even before that in farms, factories, on some counts, while on others, things are really bad…the Divided States of America is going backwards, with a bunch of fundamentalists, vile, repugnant ruffians (think Cavanaugh) on the Supreme Court, they have ruled against abortion, against that article in their constitution which separates religion from state (for the scoundrels take what they want from the book and reject what they do not like), allow guns in New York state to be carried without the need for a justified cause (although a former justice from the right had said that this is ‘the biggest fraud perpetuated on the American people’, the article about guns talks of a ‘well-regulated militia’ which was needed at the time) and the last case of yesterday, they deny the right for the administration to diminish the polluting emissions…goddamn idiots and Taliban, they have lied in their depositions and it shows now…
Gum takes these three children home, where his niece, Sylvia, and her nanny will take her of the orphans, together with cook and maid, and he will have no care, expect to provide the money, the means for all of them to have food and the necessary basics, only the man starts on an expedition, leaves enough funds for five years, and he does not return in time for the whole family to avoid despair and poverty, they are forced to have the little girls get to work, face ignorance, because they would not be educated and then when the Gum shows up, he is celebrated as a well deserving patriarch…
He would be arrested these days for neglecting his duties and allowing the children under his responsibility to face adversity and trauma, at such a tender age…they would indeed have been destitute, had it not been for divine intervention – in the view of those who take that path – the idea of the two women to open a boarding house in the lodgings they had, then the arrival of two doctors, Doctor Jakes and Doctor Smith, offers the solution to the until then unsolvable problem of tutoring the children…
Theo Dane is also looking for a room, and she talks to the head of the Children’s Academy of Dancing and Stage Training, Madame Fidolia, the latter had escaped the Russian Revolution – the arrival of those fucking goons that would bring calamity and Armageddon to our parts, and their direct descendants are now invading Ukraine, provoking crisis, inflation, hunger and death around the world – because she had been a favorite ballerina of the czar – something that Putin sees himself as being, he compared himself these days with Peter the Great (and we could agree on some counts, the loathsome Peter had killed and tortured his own son, so there you have role models for tyrants and lunatics) who had taken land from Sweden – and then she opened a school for children to use her talents…
Pauline has a passion and talent for theater – eventually, she would be taken for audition to act in a motion picture, she would succeed and then her performance is so marvelous that she is (maybe a spoiler alert here would be needed, I am not sure) offered a contract in Hollywood, which would bring wealth and benefits for the whole family, albeit Pauline is one that wants to be on stage, as a theater actress and not a movie star, only circumstances and her magnanimity might concur to have her travel to California…
Posy is the youngest, the last baby to be brought home by Gum, and attached to her were the Ballet Shoes from the title – I guess, though I do not see why she is the one to be isolated from the others, there might be a case to take Petrova and single her out, because the latter was neither interested in acting, nor in dancing, and the hopes of the Fossils to make their name an important one in history books rest with her, actors and dancers are not relevant to history, or so they think at that time, now it looks like celebrities, their scandals and innuendo are flooding the airwaves and internet, what Amber Heard did in Johnny Depp’s bed, the Will Smith slap at the Oscars, vileness of the rapper who has been sentenced to spend thirty years in prison for sex trafficking and more, then the ascent of the vile showman Trump, mentioned and dismissed in the majestic Girl, Woman, Other, Co-Winner of the 2019 Booker Prize by Bernardine Evaristo http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/06/g... where we find that ‘It's so crazy that the disgusting perma-tanned billionaire has set a new intellectual and moral low by being president of America’ which is so damn well said
Petrova takes part in the acting and dancing lessons, when she is twelve, gets a permit to work, in order to help the family survive, but her passion, probably her calling would have her work with engines, cars and eventually airplanes, the suggestion being that she will be so good at this that her name will be remembered by future generations, just like the under signed, who was a participant in the 1989 December revolution might be celebrated some time, Insha’Allah!
http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r...
More recently, they have been placed at the 927th place on The Greatest Books of All Time site
9 out of 10
Pauline, Petrova and Posy Fossil are children in this impressive narrative and yet they could be role models for so many adults, with their formidable arsenal of character strengths – courage, resilience, munificence, temperance, modesty – yes, Pauline and Posy have a very high opinion of their talents, but that is for good reason, and the former does have a phase during which she is quite arrogant, but that will pass – appreciation of beauty and excellence, humor, creativity, love of learning, sagesse, curiosity…
They have each been found as a baby by Matthew Brown, the Great-Uncle Matthew, nicknamed Gum, the latter starts as an important role model – who will find one baby, deciding to take him or her home, then a second infant and the same willingness to protect is displayed, only to have a third one more or less adopted- only to become a figure that displays some recklessness and may end up as a negative personage, if not altogether horrid, in spite of the baffling treatment he receives from the author.
In other words, this is where standards have surely changed from one hundred years ago to today – it is evident throughout the saga that we have come a long way, children were allowed to work at the age of twelve, officially, after they had received a permit, and many others would start even before that in farms, factories, on some counts, while on others, things are really bad…the Divided States of America is going backwards, with a bunch of fundamentalists, vile, repugnant ruffians (think Cavanaugh) on the Supreme Court, they have ruled against abortion, against that article in their constitution which separates religion from state (for the scoundrels take what they want from the book and reject what they do not like), allow guns in New York state to be carried without the need for a justified cause (although a former justice from the right had said that this is ‘the biggest fraud perpetuated on the American people’, the article about guns talks of a ‘well-regulated militia’ which was needed at the time) and the last case of yesterday, they deny the right for the administration to diminish the polluting emissions…goddamn idiots and Taliban, they have lied in their depositions and it shows now…
Gum takes these three children home, where his niece, Sylvia, and her nanny will take her of the orphans, together with cook and maid, and he will have no care, expect to provide the money, the means for all of them to have food and the necessary basics, only the man starts on an expedition, leaves enough funds for five years, and he does not return in time for the whole family to avoid despair and poverty, they are forced to have the little girls get to work, face ignorance, because they would not be educated and then when the Gum shows up, he is celebrated as a well deserving patriarch…
He would be arrested these days for neglecting his duties and allowing the children under his responsibility to face adversity and trauma, at such a tender age…they would indeed have been destitute, had it not been for divine intervention – in the view of those who take that path – the idea of the two women to open a boarding house in the lodgings they had, then the arrival of two doctors, Doctor Jakes and Doctor Smith, offers the solution to the until then unsolvable problem of tutoring the children…
Theo Dane is also looking for a room, and she talks to the head of the Children’s Academy of Dancing and Stage Training, Madame Fidolia, the latter had escaped the Russian Revolution – the arrival of those fucking goons that would bring calamity and Armageddon to our parts, and their direct descendants are now invading Ukraine, provoking crisis, inflation, hunger and death around the world – because she had been a favorite ballerina of the czar – something that Putin sees himself as being, he compared himself these days with Peter the Great (and we could agree on some counts, the loathsome Peter had killed and tortured his own son, so there you have role models for tyrants and lunatics) who had taken land from Sweden – and then she opened a school for children to use her talents…
Pauline has a passion and talent for theater – eventually, she would be taken for audition to act in a motion picture, she would succeed and then her performance is so marvelous that she is (maybe a spoiler alert here would be needed, I am not sure) offered a contract in Hollywood, which would bring wealth and benefits for the whole family, albeit Pauline is one that wants to be on stage, as a theater actress and not a movie star, only circumstances and her magnanimity might concur to have her travel to California…
Posy is the youngest, the last baby to be brought home by Gum, and attached to her were the Ballet Shoes from the title – I guess, though I do not see why she is the one to be isolated from the others, there might be a case to take Petrova and single her out, because the latter was neither interested in acting, nor in dancing, and the hopes of the Fossils to make their name an important one in history books rest with her, actors and dancers are not relevant to history, or so they think at that time, now it looks like celebrities, their scandals and innuendo are flooding the airwaves and internet, what Amber Heard did in Johnny Depp’s bed, the Will Smith slap at the Oscars, vileness of the rapper who has been sentenced to spend thirty years in prison for sex trafficking and more, then the ascent of the vile showman Trump, mentioned and dismissed in the majestic Girl, Woman, Other, Co-Winner of the 2019 Booker Prize by Bernardine Evaristo http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/06/g... where we find that ‘It's so crazy that the disgusting perma-tanned billionaire has set a new intellectual and moral low by being president of America’ which is so damn well said
Petrova takes part in the acting and dancing lessons, when she is twelve, gets a permit to work, in order to help the family survive, but her passion, probably her calling would have her work with engines, cars and eventually airplanes, the suggestion being that she will be so good at this that her name will be remembered by future generations, just like the under signed, who was a participant in the 1989 December revolution might be celebrated some time, Insha’Allah!
http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r...
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The story of Pauline, Petrova, and Posy will be in my heart for life, even though I must confess that was introduced to these charming and unforgettable characters from the 1975 British television version. That kind of ruined me for the book; all I'd do was nosh through my favorite scenes. Only when I was in my 20's did I read it cover to cover when I introduced its pleasures to a girl I was tutoring.
Pauline, Petrova, and Posy are three adopted girls being raised in London in the 1930's. Because of the Depression, they get training to earn money as performers on stage. Pauline turns out to have a flair for acting, and Posy turns out to be a ballerina of rare genius. Petrova hates the stage, and goes along with it only because she has to. Her dream is to learn to fly an airplane.
It's a very different experience to love this book at age 10, read it at age 20(ish), and think about it at age 40. As a girl, I dreamed of being Posy, but I identified with Petrova, if only because of her Russian background. In my 20's, I was struck by how selfish Posy was about her art. But now in my 40's, and as a (professional?) writer, I understand that inspiration IS selfish. When you have something to create, it just takes over your life.
But all this reminiscing has given me other thoughts, too. For one thing, I think the ending has a really positive message to girls, especially starry-eyed ones who dream of the glamor of a stage career. There's a difference between being famous and making history.
Pauline, Petrova, and Posy are three adopted girls being raised in London in the 1930's. Because of the Depression, they get training to earn money as performers on stage. Pauline turns out to have a flair for acting, and Posy turns out to be a ballerina of rare genius. Petrova hates the stage, and goes along with it only because she has to. Her dream is to learn to fly an airplane.
It's a very different experience to love this book at age 10, read it at age 20(ish), and think about it at age 40. As a girl, I dreamed of being Posy, but I identified with Petrova, if only because of her Russian background. In my 20's, I was struck by how selfish Posy was about her art. But now in my 40's, and as a (professional?) writer, I understand that inspiration IS selfish. When you have something to create, it just takes over your life.
But all this reminiscing has given me other thoughts, too. For one thing, I think the ending has a really positive message to girls, especially starry-eyed ones who dream of the glamor of a stage career. There's a difference between being famous and making history.
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Sweet as pie
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