Streatfeild season comes when you least expect it. For me, it came earlier this week with the sight of Tennis Shoes on a library trolley, and then, as I read it and the evenings started to twist around the end of Summer and things like Yorkshire puddings and joints of beef found their way into the fridge, I realised that it was most definitely Streatfeild season and it was good. It was time for the rich books, the books of tumultous family and bright, hard-working children that don't jib and don't jibe but just do , yet never, somehow, irritate.

I'd never read Tennis Shoes before. It is ... very .... tennisy. But! It is also rather lovely. It's a madly readable book written in that relaxed, rich style of Streatfeild. The family is immense, close, loving, annoying, and the children are delights. There's always a part of me that loves the complex child in these stories because they are, so often, the richest of characters. Nicky, here, is spectacularly irritating but also spectacularly brilliant. The contradiction of character. Streatfeild revels in it. There's much here in the family and sibling dynamics that reminded me of A Vicarage Family; both books have this kind of delightful rich, direct tone about them.

The big difficulty about Tennis Shoes comes with its structure. It finishes far too soon and almost offhandedly. There's a great, immense book here that could have been something rather brilliant, I suspect, but we only get to see a fragment of it. It's a good fragment, and a delightful read, yet it's a fragment shorn from something bigger. There's more of a story, and the ending is too soon. But then, I suppose with Streatfeild, it always sort of is.

I loved "Ballet Shoes" and "Dancing Shoes" as a child, but found very little enjoyable about this book.

The writing is, frankly, pretty awful, but Nicky is a gift:

In spite of her triumph, Nicky got into bed feeling cross. There was absolutely nobody to jump about and be pleased with. "Oh well," she thought, tucking in her back, "if nobody else is pleased, I am." She settled down for the night. "Good night, Nicky, dear. Many congratulations."

There are a few other great human moments, too, mostly with Susan and Nicky. This is a slight but very entertaining book.

Noel Streatfeild's books are so interesting. They don't really have plots, and it's hard to see a real theme in them -- they're just slice-of-life. But they're compelling and engaging and you can't help but get invested in the characters. This one was kind of hard to read, because I sympathized so deeply with Nicky but she's also kind of a twit. Still, I definitely rooted for her all the way through.

This is the fourth "shoe book" that I've read, and so far it's my least favorite. For me, tennis as the talent du jour just wasn't as exciting or as interesting as the stage talents (dancing, acting, singing) of the other shoe books I've read.

And, dare I say it? Was the book less appealing because the children weren't orphans? In the other books, the children were surrounded by supportive caretakers - Garnie and Nana in Ballet Shoes, Hannah and Alice in Theater Shoes, and Pursey and Mrs. Storm in Dancing Shoes - who stood in for the children's missing parents. But in this book, Susan, Jim, Nicky, and David did have parents, and still, Pinny and Annie were the primary adults who supported and cared for them. Their mother basically popped in for a few cameos, while their father seemed like a gentler, British version of a male tiger mom.

As a children's book, this book may be a bit more difficult than the others for early elementary school readers. Young David - perhaps my favorite character - liked to use big words, and words that he spoke were frequently purposely misspelled to reflect his childlike pronunciation. The book also gets relatively detailed when recounting tennis matches, making certain excerpts a jumble of numbers unless the reader already understands how tennis is scored. And speaking of jumbles of numbers, there was also a lot of talk about money, as the family was not especially wealthy but needed money for tennis training. And honestly, with all the crowns, shillings, and pences being discussed, I really had no idea how much money anyone had.

As usual, the ending was abrupt and left me feeling disappointed. In this case, a very dramatic event occurred just before the ending, and I wasn't sure exactly what the point of it was, except maybe to present the lesson that just because a person is a star doesn't mean he/she can't also be a fool? Just seemed like somewhat of a sour note to end things on.

Still, I gave the book 3 stars because there was plenty also to enjoy. I liked that Pinny was a fountain of maxims, and I liked how familiar St. Clair's felt because its house structure so closely resembled Hogwarts.

Mostly I liked the nuanced character development. In previous books, we had talented children with ambition (Pauline, Posy), untalented children with other ambitions (Petrova), and talented children without ambition for that particular talent (Mark, Hilary). This time, in Susan, we had a child who was just talented enough to be noticed, but only if she worked really, really, really hard, and she had some ambition, but not a "champion temperament" (pg. 242). That is, she was willing to put in the work to become a star, but she lacked confidence and was self-conscious in front of an audience. Then there was Nicky, who certainly did have a champion temperament, and was talented to boot, but she was also lazy and needed to be taught self-discipline.

I always like it when books introduce readers to new ideas, and I can imagine that young readers today - who live in a world in which certain diseases are now rare - might be encountering "measles" and "mumps" for the first time. I suppose those illnesses seem old-fashioned these days.

3.5

I had the book Ballet Shoes when I was a kid. I think it came to us ragged, and it's even more ragged now. Somehow I had no conception that this was a series - despite, according to GoodReads, apparently having read book #9, Dancing Shoes, in 2012?! I have no recollection of it). Anyway, once I *consciously* found out, I had to read at least one more.

I pretty much liked this - it has that same oozy Streatfeild feel where years pass but nothing feels slow, because the lives described are so very rich, with familial love and also working hard at interesting things. The characters are great, especially the infuriating Nicky and bombastic little David.

I have really enjoyed all of Noel Streatfeild's books that I have read.

Gave to Lily and Nico.

Re-read in honor of this year's U.S. Open. Again, YES, to Annie.
And I think of this line whenever I'm floating in water, trying to savor it all:
"On a dirty, foggy night in November we'd say: 'Let's take out Bournemouth and sit among the pine trees for a bit.'"

02-24-2009:
In the middle of Friday night's Il Trovatore, I suddenly thought of Tennis Shoes. No idea why, but it must be time for a re-read.
Update: First read in 1984/85. My Dell Yearling copy is not quite as tattered as my copy of Ballet Shoes, but it's definitely falling apart. I've never had any interest in any sport involving a ball, net, puck, bat, racquet, etc., so it's to Streatfeild's great credit that I enjoy this book as much as the other Shoes books.
Her story devices and characters are similar to the other books, but that's a comforting quality to me. Plus, with such a common structure to all the books, it's fun to pick out the differences that arise among them. I happily nominate Nicky Heath as the cheekiest of all the Streatfeild characters.
As a kid, I most enjoyed the concentration exercises that Nicky's siblings dream up for her. Now I have a greater appreciation for Annie - the first one to spot and encourage Nicky's talent. I also like the contrast between Susan's aching desire to blend in and Nicky's refusal to conform.

I enjoyed reading this, although one of the main characters, Nicky, was rather annoying. David was my favorite--"tollaly dor'ble [sic:]." Two themes are dominant in this book: hard work is important, even if you have a natural talent; England was in a moral slump and needed youth and hard work to get out of it. Nicky had the talent, but was lazy. Susan had the willingness to work, but lacked that spark of a champion. Tennis is the means by which Ms. Streatfield frames her themes, like acting, ballet and theater in her other books. family, frugality, earning your way and not getting the big head are additional themes found in almost all of her books.

A loved favorite from childhood, as most books by Streatfeild have been. It's a shame that hey books, especially those in the Shoes series are out of print or only available as European imports.
The story itself is for ages 9-11, and would not likely be engaging to older children, or those who dislike sports and tennis. The reader will learn more about growing up in a large English family in the early 20th century, before World War II than about tennis.