I have 4 books in the Shoes series and I read and reread them all the time.

This is my favorite of the shoe books and has withstood multiple re-readings as an adult. It's the same stock characters: the spoiled child whose pride comes before a fall, the nurse, the governess, the terrifying stage mom, the useless-but-kind father figure, the secretly talented protagonist - but I liked all these versions of the characters better than in other books and found them to be more three-dimensional (except the villains). I especially liked how Hilary, Mrs. Storm, Pursey and even Rachel (albeit less successfully than the others) regularly stand up to Aunt Cora in a way that no one ever dares to do to Aunt Claudia in Skating Shoes. I also enjoyed the addition of Hilary, the talented and funny/loyal/brave but lazy child, who is being pushed to do something just because she's good at it.

Some thoughts:

- Does no one else wonder how Rachel+Hilary's mom manages to die from falling down the stairs? And not only that, the doctor knew that she would die the minute she went to the hospital so it's not like it happened due to some sort of blood clotting complication. Couldn't she have gotten into a car accident instead?

- Others have talked about the unfortunate attitude toward adopted children in this book. To her credit, Rachel never thinks of Hilary as anything less than her sister. But Hilary herself thinks it many times although she doesn't seem to let it bother her. She also seems to be much less affected than Rachel by the death of their mom, which could just be because she's a go-with-the-flow type of person but also might be Streatfield projecting that an adopted child would care less about the death of her guardian, which is sad and untrue, especially since poor Hilary has now lost two sets of parents.

- While Dulcie is fun to hate, I could never fully hate Aunt Cora after being introduced to the story from her perspective in the first two chapters. She's a very determined hard-working woman who knows how to get what she wants and I couldn't help but admire her drive, especially in the 1950s, to run a successful dancing school. She's also generous in giving Rachel and Hilary a home with no expenses spared. I do think she could have used some redeeming features later in the book when she's portrayed to be quite cruel to Rachel and Hilary and disgusting in the way she speaks to Dulcie. She could still favor Dulcie and not want anyone to steal her spotlight without being cruel, especially to Rachel.

- Uncle Tom is sweet to his two nieces but a terrible absentee father to his own child. And even to his nieces, he favors Rachel and gives her pocket-money, which she then uses to bribe Hilary to work at ballet. Why isn't Hilary entitled to her own pocket money with no strings attached? Very unfair. And he doesn't bother to parent Dulcie or reason with his wife as to the parenting of Dulce at all. Even when he insists that Dulcie apologize to her cousins, he leaves the actual execution of the apology to Mrs. Storm. And he never goes to see Dulcie's performances; instead, he wanders off to paint by himself. I feel like Streatfield can't have ever met any useful, strong-minded fathers.

Finally, Rachel's obsession with Hilary's dancing gets old real fast. I can understand how the misunderstanding first occurred. They were very poor and Hilary had ballet talent so their mother's dying wish was that Rachel should make sure Hilary keeps working at her ballet. I don't believe that their mother ever meant to make any stipulations as to the type of dancing Hilary should do; she just wanted Rachel to make sure Hilary worked hard because Hilary was inclined to be lazy. While watching the ballet lessons, Madame Raine told Rachel that Hilary should avoid cartwheels, etc., because it would interfere with her ballet training so this made Rachel interpret her mother's wish that Hilary had to do ballet and nothing else. I can see how a lonely grieving child would cling to the fact that Hilary must only do ballet to satisfy the wishes of her dead mother even if it seems illogical to the adults around her and cause a lot of misunderstandings. But this misunderstanding should certainly have been cleared up earlier in the book. Pursey, Mrs. Storm and Uncle Tom try to clear it up several times and Hilary says explicitly that their mother wouldn't have cared about the type of dancing Hilary was doing. Hilary is such a strong character that I find it very hard to believe that she would calmly put up with Rachel's tantrums about her working at ballet without answering back and I don't see why the two of them are only able to have a true heart to heart about it at the very end of the book. The recurring misunderstanding spoils the book and there's plenty of conflict in the book without it so I think we could have done without it for the second half.

First of all, it was quite easy to read and I couldn't put it down. And secondly, it reminds me of my constant routine of studying choral conducting at music college cuz these ceaseless rehearsals, performances, emotional expressions are quite the same 'n' I hate this sh*t just as Rachel did xD)

The book is written for pre-teen girls. It presents a story about two girls brought together to be sisters (Hilary, whose parents had both been killed, was adopted in to Rachel Lennox's family before Rachel lost her father in an airplane crash. Later, Rachel's mother dies.) The one girl has a lot of talent for ballet dancing (Hilary), but isn't so keen to work towards a ballet career. Rachel seems to have very little talent, but is trying to keep Hilary going in the direction she feels her mother would have wanted, not to learn sub par dancing skills, but to keep pressing toward a Royal Ballet debut. In this story, they are taken in by Tom Lennox, the brother of Rachel's father. His wife Cora Wintle manages a school of dancing (the very sub part type which Rachel wishes to avoid) and her star pupil is about Hilary and Rachel's age, their daughter Dulcie. Dulcie is spoiled and petted, but the two girls come into the situation fairly well because they continue to get education and motherly care from a lady who works with Cora Wintle, Mrs. Pursey. They reside in London and become a part of the dancing school. Not only are they around Dulcie quite a bit (Hilary and Dulcie seem to be fairly well matched in their dancing skills), but other girls at various levels. Cora is not only trying to give her students training which might help them as they grow older, but is also interested in keeping various theatrical shows and various programs stocked with young talent. The story covers a couple of years as the girls get settled in their new lives and the people around them learn their strengths and talents. Turns out, the girls learn a lot about themselves as well!