Aww man. I always feel like crying when I finish this book.

Full review to come.

3.5 stars. Such a delight! I enjoyed seeing how this simple tale of three adopted sisters would unfold.

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...

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.

One of my ultimate comfort novels. If I had a choice, I’d be Posy - who would you be?

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...

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.

Sweet as pie

One of my two favorite of Streatfield's "Shoes" books. A children's novel from the 1930s about three adopted sisters, poor but talented, who attend a dance and stage school in London. They have a guardian who turns her home into a boarding house to make a living, and most of the other characters live there.

This is probably the first book ever where I cannot say 'The book is better' straight away. First of all, it is clear that the book is for children and the film is for the grown ups. But the beauty remains in both.



Pauline, Petrova and Posy are sister by 'accident' as they were all adopted by a wealthy and nice uncle Matthew (whom they called Gum, because Great Uncle Matthew. G.U.M.). After he brought the youngest Posy home, though, he disappeared. There was enough money in the bank for a couple of years, but it was not enough and soon, they ran short of it. The sisters were all talented. Pauline could act and recite and Posy wasn't very far from being a professional ballerina. And Petrova was incredibly clever, although she was interested in cars and engines instead of performing arts. As the girls grew up, they decided to act for money, so they could support their poor household. They have made a vow regularly, because they believed they could achieve great things. And because their names were unique, no one could say it was because of their grandfathers. But the way towards their dreams isn't always easy.

It is fairly obvious that some changes were required, so the film could be a family-friendly one. So that parents would not be too bored. But to be honest, I liked the change. I enjoyed the relationship and the mild romantic tension between Garnie and Mr Simpson and I really missed that in the book. But I do understand that children might really not find that very interesting. On the other hand, I'm really sad the part with the Blue Bird play wasn't in the film as I think it could have been done in a really nice way.

To conclude, I would say that the book is probably as good as the film, but it's still leaning towards the statement that the film is a little bit better. But it is a purely subjective view, because I'm very sensitive towards films like this...and come on, this one has even got Emma Watson in it!

My mum bought me a copy of this book when I was 7/8 after I loved A Vicarage Family by Noel Streatfeild. I became a massive fan of her work from that moment and dug out my old copy of Ballet Shoes yesterday after seeing the wonderful new adaptation of it at The National Theatre last week.

Pauline, Petrova and Posy Fossil live on the Cromwell Road in London in a big house but they are far from wealthy as their Great Uncle Matthew has not returned for years. They start to develop their own hobbies and have lessons at Madame Fidolia's stage Academy while helping Sylvia (their guardian) and Nanna with the household income.

This has lost none of it's charm for me. Streafeild wrote this in 1936 and it was the first book about children going on stage. Even she was shocked by how well it sold as she had been writing for adults before. It still stands up well now. I love the 3 different personalities of the girls and how they join together to earn money on stage although they don't always enjoy it. Especially Petrova who is more of a Tomboy. Streatfeild herself was an actress for 10 years and she just gets it. The highs and the lows but also the importance of being a good person and having integrity.

A wonderful book about children on the stage but also the realities of working hard and the highs and lows of working in the Arts. I am so glad I re-read it!

Isn't life grand? Here I am, a 60-ish person, raised in a literary home, having read classics by the bushel, and I keep discovering books I missed in my childhood!

This was a charming story of a loveable (but irresponsible) avuncular professor who bundles up unwanted babies, brings them home to his niece, then travels to nether parts for his next geological dig. Actually Gum (Great-uncle Matthew) hardly reckons in the story. The three orphans — Pauline, Petrova, and Posy — are the girls whose fortunes and misfortunes we follow.

I listened with my granddaughter for a while, but the necessary setup of the narrative in the opening chapters didn't twirl her skirts.

Favorite quote:

There is no doubt a new dress is a help under all circumstances.