It is amazing how almost an entire village comes together to participate in a pageant organised by kids. And it all started when Selina, 14, receives a party frock and satin shoes from a godmother in America. It is World War II, therefore, there are no grand parties for Selina to wear the frock and shoes at her cousins’ home in a rural village in England. Her six cousins – John, Christopher, Sally, Phoebe, Augustus and Benjamin – come together to put on a pageant that eventually turns out to be an affair that is bigger than expected.

Read my review: http://www.booksloveme.com/2012/12/pa...

When Selina's American godmother sends her a wonderful party frock and matching shoes shortly before the end of World War II, Selina is desperate for an opportunity to wear them, but no suitable parties are on the horizon. Turning to her cousins, with whom she lives, for help, they decide to put on a pageant on the grounds of the local manor. As the children enlist the help of various friends and neighbors the plans mushroom until the very reason for the pageant is almost overlooked.

It was a nice book, love the storyline. But there are too many main characters for my taste, a bit hard to keep track of.

I've always liked Noel Streatfeild's books and this was another fun read, one that I would definitely have enjoyed as a kid. Reading as an adult, I found this one having too many characters, with the end result I didn't really connect with any of them.

Selina is living with her country cousins in rural England during WWII. When she gets a beautiful dress, her cousins invent a pageant to provide an occasion to wear the dress, and the whole town get involved. Not Streatfeild's best, but an interesting look at kids taking charge. The pageant is set at an abbey and involves the pastor, but there's no religious content.

I loved this book, this book was really good. I am really sad that why did Selina pass her frock and shoes to Phobe but, that's not to worry about. This book just made me think that the people/ person who is mentioned in this story are really independent and are allowed to do the pageant on their own!.
Really good book.

There is something rather lovely about Streatfeild's England. Every village has a family full of a thousand siblings. There are sensible and yet approachable adult folk. There is always a girl who is earnestly in love with ballet who ends up being recruited to train with the local (there is always one present) ballet teacher who just happens to spot purposeful talent in the girl. There is sunshine. There are sibling dynamics full of love and fun and heart. There is loveliness. (If you would like a game for this review, you can count up how many times I say things are lovely...)

Selina in Party Shoes has received a frock. The problem is that as it's wartime, the opportunities for her to wear this frock are very limited. To be frank, it's not going to happen and so the cousins with whom Selina is lodging (due to her parents being abroad), put their head together to make a plan. And that plan is this. They will hold a pageant in the grounds of the local Abbey and that Selina will be able to wear her frock at that.

It's a lovely and ridiculous book this, and it's easy to think that it's solely ridiculous with the benefit of reading this in todays age. The plot itself is glorious; we'll hold a pageant, here's how we plan the pageant, whoops here's the pageant, all's good, bye. And to be frank there are moments of planning which drag a little only to be resolved in that blithe booky fashion which never seems to happen in real life.

That's one way of reading it, but I'd argue that there's another. The thing is this plot comes from real life. Not the pageant-y part of it, but the aching need to wear a dress at the right occasion before one grows out of it. Streatfeild's niece, Nicolette, received a dress during the war and the occasion never presented itself for the dress to be worn. As Streatfeild explains during the introduction to my edition, everyone began to wonder would the occasion ever present itself and if it did would it be too late? Would Nicolette have grown too much and would the dress fit?

Now, the inability to do something in an everyday context is annoying and troublesome as it is, but the inability to do something as simple as have an occasion fit for a pretty dress in the middle of wartime must have been something else. And there's something lovely, heartbreaking and beautiful about the way the entire community bands together to achieve this, even if they almost forget what they're doing it for in the process, even if they're almost banding together to create something beautiful and positive and a memory to hold against all the sadness and trauma that they have lived through.

So yes, Party Shoes (also known as Party Frock) is ridiculous.

But it's also something very much more than that.

I loved so many of Noel Streatfeild’s books when I first tree ad them as a child. I thought finding a new one would be a special treat. It was not. I found it hard to believe that so many people would know so much about theatrical history that they could put on this pageant, with hundreds of participants.

I liked this book, although I was annoyed at how Selina did stuff,were she just took orders and stuff.

A beautiful dress and shoes arrive in the mail. Good news, right? Well, maybe not if your country is at war, your parents are in a Hong Kong internment camp, and rationing limits party opportunities. Selina is living with her relatives and the kids come up with a plan. They will give a pageant at the end of summer holidays and Selina will do the prologue and epilogue with the other kids writing the scenes in between. As preparations begin, the kids and their family enlist the help of friends and neighbors and the pageant grows and grows and grows. It was humorous and heartwarming. Having been on the planning side of dramatic events, I can relate to the logistic issues of sets, costumes, scheduling, and feeding all of the participants. The best part is that Noel Streatfeild actually had a party dress dilemma of her own that inspired the book. Highly recommended and one of my favorites so far in the Shoes series.

Loved it! Sensitive daughter approved. All turns out well in the end. A slight bit of sibling bickering at times and the words stupid and ass are used. Solid family working together values shine in this book.

(September 2016: 4 stars)
Yet another good book from Noel Streatfeild. Not amazing, but enjoyable. One of the concerns I often have about some of her books, from a Christian perspective, is that while they are encouraging children to work hard at whatever they do (which is a good thing) I fear in case they would inspire impressionable children to take up the activities promoted in the books - whether it be ballet, ice skating, or whatever, and I am not sure that I would want to encourage that.

But that problem doesn't really exist with this book as this is more about a one-off event rather than encouraging people to devote a lifetime to their art, and there are multiple characters who all have their own interests. It's just an enjoyable book.

Negative reviewers need to remember that Streatfeild didn't really write a 'Shoes' series. She wrote many individual stories which people have taken it into their heads to rename to give them a uniformity of title, to apparently construct a series out of them where no connection between the books was ever intended, and to cash in on the popularity and success of Ballet Shoes. To say that this is the worst of the 'Shoes' books is neither here nor there as it was never a 'Shoes' book to begin with. Party Frock is a much more apt title as shoes barely come into it, but still it is rather a pity that it should have such a girly title when it is equally suitable for boys.


(February 2025: 3 stars)
The last time I read Party Frock (2016) I seemed to really enjoy it if my review is anything to go by. This time I didn't! It may be because I've read so much Noel Streatfeild since then that I've got a lot more to compare it with. But really it was primarily because one character irritated me so much - Philip. This time round he just came across as so arrogant and obnoxious without a single redeeming quality. Regardless of the fact that he knew what he was doing and how to achieve effective results, I still felt like he completely hijacked the pageant and turned it into something it was never meant to be. The same attitude which I found in Wintle's Wonders came across, 'adults know best', and the children were prevented from just having a bit of innocent fun and dragged irrevocably into something they had never signed up for. I kept hoping Philip might get his come-uppance, but he never did. And I never thought he was genuinely apologetic to Selina after the scene near the end. He just made excuses for himself, and in the end, though things turned out alright, you still felt that he was only using her, and it was only because he found a way that he could effectively incorporate her into the pageant that he did so - whereas if he hadn't thought of a way he would have just cast her aside with a few soft-soaped words of excuse.