نویسنده درباره این کتاب گفته:
"really a fairy story with its feet halfway on the ground"
و من هم با این توصیف موافقم.

The first time I had heard of this book was in the movie "You've Got Mail". When I discovered it was real, I had decided I'd look for it to read. A few years went by and I had forgotten about the book until friends of mine read it and gave it rather good ratings, so I added the book to my wishlist. Recently, I had just finished reading Little By Little in which the author mentions having read the book and how it influenced her. This time, I researched the library's catalog and discovered they had it.

I'm glad I gave the book a chance. It was charming and a pleasant surprise. This was originally written in the 1930's and felt relevant for today's youth. There are scenes to make you laugh and scenes that make your heart ache, as we follow the lives of 3 girls from infancy into their teens.

This book passed me by as a child but it was one of my daughter’s favourites growing up and I’m glad I’ve now read it. I really enjoyed the story of the Fossil sisters and the elusive Gum. Really likeable characters; nana was my favourite with her no nonsense approach and comic one liners. Some of the sisters got too big for their boots occasionally, but that all added to their characters. An all round lovely book.

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.

Read aloud to the sissies. A classic, a delight. I do wish I understood British currency better though.

I enjoyed the story of the three little girls and I am glad I finally got to read it. I have wanted to know the story, since hearing the book mentioned in the movie You've Got Mail. Without a yearly challenge to drive me to seek it out and see if it was available from my library, though, I probably would not have gotten to it and to be able to mark it as "read" and to remove it from my TBR list.

This is a lovely story, very charming and very British. If I’d read it as a child I know I would have adored it. But as an adult I find the writing a little too simple and straightforward to get fully immersed in. Despite colorful backdrops, like theater productions of Alice in Wonderland and A Midsummer Night's Dream, and a wonderful cast of quirky characters - the storytelling itself falls a little flat. It’s simply missing that sprinkle of story magic that would put it up there with other children’s classics like Anne of Green Gables, Peter Pan or Astrid Lindgren's books for me.

Really enjoyable for theatre geeks and fans of an early twentieth century atmosphere. I liked the theme of ballancing and combining passion and responsibility. It would probably have been even more fun to read this at the right age.

Why did I wait so long to read this? I love this

I love this book.
When I think of this book, I think:
Ribbons, vintage books, childhood, aeroplanes, the theatre, and ballet shoes.

This book is essentially about girlhood and sisterhood and the burden of growing into a woman.
It gives us a peek into life in 1920s england in the stage school world.
It's a classic because it encapsulates the human experience of three completely different girls growing up together and being fast friends despite money and career troubles.
All the characters in this book are likeable and interesting. They feel like real people that I've met.
This book is personal and beautiful.


Also, Petrova fossil is literally me

A wonderful experience!! It was very informative about life as dancing and acting students in 1930s London, yet written with the forthrightness of a child's perspective and a fun sense of humor. I plan to read more by Noel Streatfeild.

I'm sorry, Susann, but this will be my only Shoes book.

I found it sweet but unsatisfying. I just couldn't care about anyone but Petrova, and even she was a little marshmallow-y. There was never any real doubt about how it would end, or if the latest character would be interested in helping the girls or even if one or another would get any given part. All the self-sacrificing was... again, the only word I keep coming up with for this book is sweet. Sweet like white sugar, sweet like cotton candy, sweet like I need to read something wicked to get the stickiness washed out.