J'ai dû malheureusement abandoner le livre, car je le lis en anglais et je pense que c'est un peu compliqué pour moi de comprendre. C'est lourd à lire, du coup je n'ai pas pu m'accrocher à l'histoire et c'est bien dommage. A l'avenir je m'attaquerai à des livres en anglais plus faciles et plus courts.

Ballet shoes for Anna, is a heartwarming, slightly teary story about three siblings who become orphans after a Turkish earthquake. They are sent off to their nearest relation. Anna the youngest of them all has her heart set on becoming a ballerina. The only thing that stands in her way is……………………
There uncle did not approve of dancing so, with the help of her brothers and their friend Wally, will Anna’s earthquake inside of her finally stop.

Having previously read and enjoyed White Boots, I was looking forward to reading more of Noel Streatfeild's work. Although there was nothing particularly wrong with Ballet Shoes for Anna, I found myself slightly disappointed at the abrupt and slightly 'lack lustre'. I was looking forward to seeing the relationship develop more between the children and their aunt and uncle. I found myself wanting to see more of Aunt Mabel's character, perhaps she would make a positive change and become a stronger and more confident person or the Uncle would have warmed to the children. But instead, the story just ended abruptly on the return of Sir William and I felt the whole story was concluded in just a few paragraphs. So although the story was strong throughout I rather feel the ending let it down.

Although Noel Streatfield was a children's author I still enjoy her books. I really like how her main characters are always flawed as well.

It's funny how relevant a story like this is in today's world. Here we have three children: with a Polish mother and a British father, they were born in India, Iran and Turkey respectively. They've travelled all their life and now, orphaned by an earthquake, they're refugees in Britain trying to make sense of a life totally unlike the one they left behind. Anna's a talented dancer, or will be if she has the training, but in a world where being given a home is expected to be enough, that's not an easy thing to come by.

This book's one of the more modern of Streatfeild's books, set in the 70s -- she must have been nearly 90 when she wrote it, at least -- and while some of it will seem dated to the modern reader, I honestly think there are a lot of children now who'd see themselves in this book, kids who don't speak English well and don't like British food (even if you can get curry pretty easily these days and cabbage isn't that popular). This is as "diverse" a book as many that are marketed that way, and it's a touching story of three children tackling loss and dislocation in an unknown land.

Sure, Anna's a little fixated on dancing. Yes, it's not an up-to-date story. But I think there's a lot in it that's relevant to today's Britain.

its a great book but was a challenge. Thats because the printing was small. But still it was very interesting how the older sister was into witch craft.
*GRACE*

I LOVE THIS BOOK! It is a great story about about a girl named Anna.

This was good for light reading a very cute book and good storey line.

Maiku:

Earthquake changed her life
but Anna perseveres in
her desire to dance.

The three children had been orphaned after their parents and grandparents died from terrifying earthquake along with the village. It's just vanished as if it was never existed.

So the children was led by Sir William and they were sent to live with their cheapskate paternal Uncle, Cecil from Britain. The children hate their Uncle but shows kindness towards their Aunt, Mabel.

They made friends with Wally (his parents sell clothes etc) and their twin neighbour, Jonathan and Priscilla.

Anna, the youngest needs to learn dancing but she is very picky to choose the teacher. She wants the best teacher to teach her as their grandfather whom they called Jardek told Anna to find the best teacher. So the eldest of them Francesco and the middle Gussie tried hard to pay her dancing class and unluckily Gussie joined a bad gang but the truth went out and finally they met Sir William again and somehow Sir William is the one who will take care of them by sending the boys to boarding school and provide Anna her dancing class witg Madam Scarletti who turned out knew Jardek well.

Frankly speaking, I don't like Anna's character because as if she never appreciate teacher's quality. And the story itself from getting interesting to rather drown and the ending was a bit of disappointment.

Katie made me pull this off my shelf again (for the first time in a decade, I think). It's not terrible, actually. Kind of more compelling than I expected. The earthquake is still shattering - that's what I remembered most about this - but Mabel is an oddly interesting character, too.

This is short, though. Too short to develop a story well or to make any conflict or confusion around "S'William" convincing.

After a devastating earthquake in Turkey, orphans Francesco, Gussie, and Anna are sent to live with an uncle and aunt in a small English town. Life there is nothing like the nomadic life they are used to, but they try to settle down. However, nothing matters to Anna be having ballet lessons from a proper teacher. How her older brothers try to fulfill her wish makes an interesting story.