A good understanding of children and what they think and their motivations. Also a good book for children to read who have problems socializing with their peers.

The Painted Garden--the original title--was my favorite book when I was little. I read it so many times, the cover fell off. Such a wonderful voice Streatfeild has with her narratives!

A fabulous companion-of-sorts to The Secret Garden -- about a grumpy, awkward middle child named Jane Winter who ends up starring in a film version of it. It's interesting to consider them side-by-side to see how dramatically children's literature changed in a relatively short period of time (and for the record, I also love The Secret Garden!).

This book is very good, plus one of the most deformed books in my library. Noel Streatfield is a writer I would recommend!

This was probably my least favorite Shoes book growing up, because Jane is a difficult character to read about. This is a Streatfield novel, so the story starts with quite a set of coincidences: her father is ill and the doctor says he must get out of England for the winter; his sister lives in Santa Monica; Jane is wandering around Santa Monica when she finds a lost dog, whose owner is a movie producer looking for a Mary for his The Secret Garden. Jane gets the part because she's British and emphatic.

Jane's a hard character. Her sister is a talented dancer and her brother is a talented pianist. She's the middle, untalented child - and the plainest one, too. Streatfield has characters like that, but they usually aren't given a story. Here, Jane is, and it's both compelling and disturbing.

I'm not going to take away from the fact that Jane is very difficult, because she is - and very realistically so - but her parents' behavior is shocking. Which was a new discovery for me, on this reread. Bee is embarrassed of her, and John is entertained by her, and neither try to parent at all. Mrs. Doe, who's in the book for three pages, a) is a better listener and b) gives excellent, practical advice which c) demonstrates more understanding of Jane than her parents ever show. And then there's Dr. Smith and even Jane's Mr. Browne, who both relate to Jane through her dog - again more than Bee and John do.

Movie Shoes ends up being a story - likely inadvertently - of an enchanted California interlude. Of a child who's the odd one out, and who makes her own luck through sheer force of will, and who's going back to her odd-man-out life in England, where her best friend is her dog. Outside the confines of this book, the story is pretty miserable.

I am enjoying Noel Streatfeild's books more now than I did when I was a child. I could not relate to her type A career driven children when I was young.

Yes, I did re-read all of these in one stretch. Streatfield catches the feel for post-war America and Hollywood fairly well. I don't think she would recognize Santa Monica in 2009.

This one not as good as I remember, the children are v annoying

Jane is the middle child in her family - the untalented, ungracious and plain one in between ballet dancer Rachel and pianist Tim. When the family moves to California for six months for her father's health, Jane is once again the odd one out, with any aspirations or talents. But then a movie director invites her to audition for the role of Mary in a film adaptation of The Secret Garden.

Jane is one of children's fiction's genuinely difficult main characters. She is crabby and unreasonable and stubborn, she has an awful temper and bottles things up, and she's a bad loser and an ungracious winner. I did not always like her, but I did find her very sympathetic! ("Were you an awful child" yes yes I was.) But you do see why she is always acting up and in a temper, because it does feel from her perspective that she isn't considered important to anyone.

The parallels between The Secret Garden and her role of Mary aren't subtle. In fact she is cast for that very reason, for being so like the sour, unhappy Mary - and it's the transition to the gentle, blooming Mary that she finds difficult in both film and real life. I found that so interesting, that even though Jane does get happier and make some friends, she was difficult in many ways to the very end.

All of the children act in ways which feel both childish and real, their concerns and their point of view are taken seriously - though the book is also quite funny, so it's never too earnest.