Theater Shoes is great and I have the book!

We all thought the plot was too similar to the first book. Loved the narrator though.

Read this as a child. Loved reading it with my daughter. We loved hearing more about the Fossils from Ballet Shoes!

Loving this series. Interesting characters, a different way of life. Hard times but the books are hopeful and about resilient kids!

Lovely story. Fun to see "apples and pears" and "bees and honey" on the British shop marquee in CSprings - cause we now know what it means!!!

Listened to this as an audio book and it was delightful. This series is such a light-hearted collection of stories and I truly enjoy them. This one was about three young children who lived with their grandfather while their father served in the war, only to have their grandfather die and they move in with a grandmother that they've never met with the side of the family they never knew existed. Of course the family is all famous in The Theatre, so the three children must join Madame and become absolutely amazing. Hi-jinks and love abound.

What is not to love. A perfect Christmas read (it has Christmas in it multiple times) and if you loved Ballet Shoes, this is the prefect 'sequel'. Streatfeild really captures the thoughts and feelings of the children beautifully using her own experiences of life in WW2.

You can’t beat Noel Streatfield

Every book of hers I read becomes a new favourite. Another perfect story and I didn’t realize a kind of sequel to Ballet Shoes

Theatre Shoes is a charming tale about three children who come to live with their famous, impoverished, eccentric grandmother in London during WWII, and end up attending a performing arts academy.

When I was younger, I totally thought that I was Sorrel, the eldest of the siblings, who feels a great deal of responsibility for her younger brother and sister, but who also has ambitions of being an actress. Sorrel is pretty good, but she has a lot to live up to-- her late mother was a beloved actress who left the stage to marry, and Sorrel's grandmother is still performing in the West End. Everyone else in the family has some connection to showbiz, not least Sorrel's spoiled cousin Miranda, who is an insanely talented actress as well as a bit of a bitch... but who obviously cares so much about her acting that it's really impossible not to have sympathy for her. Sorrel is forced to agree with Alcott's declaration that "talent isn't genius, and no amount of hard work will make it so," but the fact that she still has so much to learn makes her easy to relate to. (Anyway, we can't all be Miranda.)

It's been years since I read Theatre Shoes, but I remember it fondly as a well written, slightly archaic, and surprisingly realistic portrayal of three kids trying to sort out who they are and what they want to be.

Straightforward sequel to Ballet shoes, involving the fortunes of 2 sisters and a brother who find themselves helped in their plight by the very same Fossil sisters from Ballet shoes.

Amazing!

Theater Shoes is a middle grade novel about three siblings sent to live with their Grandmother and attend a prestigious performing arts academy.

Things You'll Find:
*Mention of the Fossil Sisters from "Ballet Shoes"*
*Tedious detail about the day to day life within the academy*
*Alice phrases that you can't make head nor tail of*

I loved "Ballet Shoes" and "Skating Shoes" by Noel Streatfeild, so I want to make my way through all the Shoes books. Theater Shoes follows siblings Sorrel, Mark, and Holly during WWII as they are engaged as pupils at Madame Fidolia's academy. Streatfeild crafted another wholesome tale about sibling love and being kind to others during hard times. Uncle Mose, Aunt Lindsey, and Miriam were hands down my favorite characters and I loved how warm every scene including them was.

However, while Theater Shoes isn't a bad continuation of the series, I didn't find it as engaging or charming as Ballet Shoes or Skating Shoes. The pacing in this one feels off. There are a quite a few chapters inserted that only detail things like what the kids did today at school or tiresome conversations with Grandma. It just seemed like there were a lot of negligible, dull moments in this one in-between the actual story. I think this story also suffers because Mark and Holly don't have as much personality as Petrova or Posy. Part of what I like about Ballet Shoes is that it highlights just how different the girls are, by their actions, their thoughts, and their goals. We get a good sense of Sorrel in this book, but Mark and Holly are more or less just there so there's technically three siblings, which wouldn't be a huge deal if Streatfeild didn't try to give them their own chapters and moments, all of which fell flat.

I also might be in the minority here, but I couldn't stand how Alice talked. I think even kid me wouldn't have been able to catch on to a lot of her sayings. A slightly eccentric maid can be fun, but I think it can be difficult to craft eccentricity in books and Streatfeild just missed the ball on this one. Also, thank you Noel for reminding me why I hated Posy, I'd forgotten until this book.

Overall, this book is nice and sweet, but also a little dry. I'd recommend Ballet Shoes for sure, but not sure this one has an audience outside of theater kids who would be able to directly relate to and understand the trials of the Forbes children.