This book was just OK for me, I don't know if it's because this book is a children's book, or if it's simple not for me, but I didn't find it that brilliant.
There were parts of it which I did like, and it was a quick and easy read, but overall it wasn't brilliant and I wouldn't read it again. I especially didn't like the ending.
I read Ballet Shoes a while ago and I liked it, so I had high hopes for this book, but unfortunately it didn't live up to my expectations.

For a full review, visit my blog at www.thebooktower.webs.com

I have always loved Noel Streatfeild's books and as a child I got my library to ILL them for me or hunted through second hand book stores to find all of them. She tells the perfect "girls stories". I was always able to find one character in each book that was my favorite. They definitely stand up to re-reads.

Anna and her two live with their grandparents in a small village in Turkey which is devastated by an earthquake. When the beloved grandparents are killed, the children are sent to live with a severe British uncle who refuses to allow Anna to take dancing lessons. Her brothers Francesco and Gussie are miserable too, until they unexpectedly find help. As with many of Streatfeild's books, one learns about an art as well as the characters. Not as much fun as _Ballet Shoes_, but an entertaining story.

2023: I remembered some parts of this book. A quick read.

2017: well written but nearly all the characters seemed a bit improbable.

Eh. Didn't really appeal to me. And everyone kept saying that the kids had terrible English but it really wasn't that bad??? Like it was just grammatical stuff, really.

Ballet shoes for Anna is a light read I picked between my serious reading.

It's a book that made me laugh and cry. The three children are absolutely adorable and their conversations in broken English are amusing. I especially loved the chemistry between Francesco and Gussie, little Gussie lying down on pavements and Anna's passion for dance.

It was an enjoyable book.

This book is about three children - Francesco, Gussie and Anna - who are taken from Eastern Europe to England to live with their Aunt and Uncle. Unfortunately they disapprove of dancing, yet Anna is determined to be a ballet dancer. The book revolves around the children's gradual adaptation to British life, and also Anna's persistence in needing to find ballet classes and a teacher who will take her seriously.

As ever with this author's work, the children are delightful - a mixture of good and bad, responsible and irresponsible - and the adults rather caricatured. But that's not a bad thing in a book intended for this agegroup. The story moves along rapidly and I enjoyed it very much.

My only criticism of the book is that it ends very abruptly. There are some dramatic events in the last couple of chapters, then suddenly all problems are solved in a 'deus ex machina' way in about two pages. It didn't feel as if it fit with the rest of the book.

But other than that, it's excellent - and a little more thought-provoking than others by this author.

interesting.....

Not one of Streatfeild's best.

If you were a school administrator, would you hold the first day meeting telling kids not to ask the new ones about the earthquake IF you knew your school had people like Wilf's gang?

Also, if you were in Wilf's gang, wouldn't you then immediately ask? It seems like you're giving bullies the buttons to push.

The story itself feels pretty incomplete -- like a short story that was just barely extended to book length and so some things were added to bulk it up.

Mabel is against boarding school in the beginning and Cecil is for it. But, when there's no money, Cecil just sends the kids locally. But then S'William's solution in the end is to send the boys to boarding school. Not sure that solved anything for the boys -- they'll be away from Wally & his family, potentially there's not the spicy food Mabel cooked them for lunch, and they're being dropped into yet another new environment.

Anna seems like she's gotten everything she wants, but we know nothing about her other than the fact that she likes to dance, she loved her family, and she 100% believes that whatever her grandfather said about dance was true.

Do you think you can tell someone is going to be an incredible dancer through seeing barre exercises at age 8? They could have amazing flexibility and turnout, good placement, etc. But there's so much beyond that -- both in technique and in presenting yourself on stage.

A simple yet sweet tale of three children who, after an earthquake which destroys their home and family, are left clinging to the only things they know: they must behave at their uncle's house, they must stick together and Anna must learn to dance. A lovely little book.

I've read this dozens of times and still enjoy it. There are definitely some class issues to discuss with a child reading it, but the prejudice is from characters who are not exactly portrayed as enlightened in other ways either, and not worse than their time.

I was suprised how up-to-the-moment-it-was-written this was. It's a very late career Streatfeild and considering how old she was, this actually feels like she was still in touch with what was going on at the time it was written - unlike some other of her contemporaries. There's common themes and experiences with her earlier books, but life has moved on - the ballet of Ballet Shoes is here, but Streatfeild knows it's not the 1930s any more and things have changed - I was impressed.

Beyond that it's a nice culture clash story about three children who are orphaned and have to try and adjust to living in England after having lived a nomadic life in a caravan travelling around Europe with their parents. It could have used a bit more of S'William and a bit more resolution at the end, but other wise, it's a really good children's story.