Book 46 - "'We'll give it tea-leaves next time. Carpets like tea-leaves.'"

Title: The Phoenix and the Carpet (1904)

Author: E. Nesbit

Why this book:
Nesbits's book, The Railway Children, was one of the mainstays of my childhood, but I'd never read any of her fantasy works before, so I thought I'd give it a go.

So what's it all about?
It's the school holidays, and one family of children are impatient for Guy Fawkes' night. They decide to light one or two fireworks in the girls' bedroom, accidentally setting the rug on fire when they do so. Their mother buys a new rug, a second-hand one which arrives containing an unusual, glowing egg. The egg hatches into a phoenix, which in turn tells them that the carpet it arrived in is, in fact, a magical carpet that will take them anywhere they want to go.



The children are no strangers to bizarre magical happenings, having previously encountered a wish-granting Psammead in the book *Five Children and It*, and are excited to be able to go off adventuring again. They quickly find, however, that the carpet has limitations, when it strands them in a tower in the middle of nowhere. And the phoenix, although an intelligent creature, has its own problems - it's egotistical, and has a habit of accidentally setting things on fire.

However, these problems are minor compared to the trouble the children face when their baby brother, nicnamed Lamb, crawls onto the carpet and flies away. It's hard enough hiding a phoenix and a rapidly deteriorating magical rug from their parents, without trying to explain why the baby has disappeared...

The Good and the Bad
This was, to me, a book which has badly dated. The actual adventures of the children, and even the children themselves, are fine - they're squabbly, at time bratty, but essentially goodhearted - but certain views of the writer (reflecting, I gues, societal views of the time) definitely overshadowed a lot of the fun of the book. Most notably, the racism inherent in the children's trips - one trip of theirs is to a tropical islnd, where the people are simply described as savages. Not only, in fact, are they savages who are given no traits beyond the (dark) colour of their skin, but when they meet the children's Cook, they immediately bow down and worship her as their queen, which made my teeth itch.

There's also the token bit of sexism, although no more than in most early twentieth century chilren's books. The two sisters, Anthea and Jane, are between them the kindest of the children, the only ones capable of sewing, the most easily frightened, and in need of male protection. They do, however, fully participate in all of the adventures, and since these traits are split between the two of them they aren't nearly as bad as, say, Anne from the Famous Five (who I love, but really, talk about overkill with the "feminine" qualities.)

So should I read it or what?
Once again I'm going to say read something of the author's, but not this book. The Railway Children, as I said, was an important part of my childhood, but as I haven't read it recently I can't really comment on whether the -isms are as bad there as they are here (although I suspect not). Most of Nesbit's works can be found here, at Project Gutenberg, and I do recommend checking them out.

Link of the day:

Books 35 - 40: Six (Girls Own) Geese a-layin'.

Seasons greetings! Currently I am in an awesome mood, because a. I got some seriously awesome stuff for Christmas (although sadly few books) b. I'm on holiday until January 5, which allows for some serious reading, and c. this is the view from my deck:


Awwww yeah. I currently have no plans for New Year's, either, so I'm planning on seeing in 2010 by reading as many books as I can in one night. Dorky and socially isolating, sure, but a lot less harrowing for the liver.


35.
Title: Robins in the Abbey (1947)
Author: Elsie J. Oxenham

36.
Title: The New Abbey Girls (1923)
Author: Elsie J. Oxenham

37.
Title: Maid of the Abbey (1943)
Author: Elsie J. Oxenham

Sometimes when you begin reading a new series of books you can start anywhere and pick up what's going on and who's who. The Abbey Girls is not one such series. I started with seventh-to-last book, out of thirty-eight books, and for at least the first three chapters I had no idea what was going on. The main character, one of the titular Robins, was easy enough to grasp. She's a young heiress travelling back to Wales from New York, by ship: when she receives news that her father, also overseas, has been in an accident, she's invited home by Lady Quellyn, who lives at the Abbey.

So far so good, right? Only when she gets to the Abbey the virgin reader - ie me - is confronted with characters by the names of Joy, Jean, Joan, Jandymac and Jen, all who seem to have several pairs of twins who are all named after each other; then there's Rosamund, whose daughters are all named some variation of Rose; as well as their first names, they're all Ladies or Countesses, and Joy used to be Lady Marchwood but she's now Lady Quellyn and Jen is Lady Marchwood; oh, and then they've all got nicnames, after flowers, so they're also called Primrose or Daisy or Hyacinth or Violet and I never knew who anyone was talking about.

Even amongst all this confusion, Oxenham's strengths shone through. Of all the writer of "Girls Own" stories - a term used to describe books written exclusively for girls in the late 19th and early 20th centuries - Oxenham is probably the best known, besides Enid Blyton. Her characters, although not always incredibly complex, are still human: in Robins, the female Robin is impatient and frustrated when she realises she is in love (with a man who has the same name as her) yet she can't approach him because she's a woman, and you really get a sense of how a girl in her position must have felt. Oxenham also writes beautiful, vivid descriptions of her settings, whether it's the English Abbey or Robin's home in Wales.

The New Abbey Girls cleared up a lot of my confusion. It's book 13 in the series, and although it was severely abridged I finally got a handle on who everyone was and why they were so important. Particularly of interest were the scenes where Joy - at this point, neither Lady Marchwood nor Lady Quellyn - takes her new ward, Maidlin, to various folkdancing classes. Folkdancing seems to happen in every single book - as well as the crowning of a May Queen - but here, so early in the series, it seemed a lot more interesting and was better integrated with the story. Even if I'd never heard of any of the dances, it was still fascinating to read about. Sadly, my copy of this book was severely and noticeably abridged, which made the story jump all over the place.

Maid introduces two more characters, Anne and Belinda Belanne, who also appear in Robins. A sick Anne is invited to the Abbey along with her sister, who is delighted to find her idol, the singer Maidlin, lives there. When disaster strikes the Abbey in the form of measles, Anne takes over as cook, and Belinda become a nurse-slash-governess to Joy's twin girls. Maidlin is caught up in her own romantic drama - she's being wooed by a dear friend, but she's in love with his uncle.

The books are mostly light fare, although I'm given to understand that others in the series touch on deeper subjects, such as religion, and death and illness. Fun though, and surprisingly hard to put down.


38.
Title: Ruey Richardson: Chaletian (1960)
Author: Elinor M. Brent-Dyer

39.
Title: Cornelia of the Chalet School (2009)
Author: Jackie Roberts

40.
Title: Before the Chalet School: The Bettanys of Taverton High (2008)
Author: Helen Barber

Ruey Richardson doesn't settle in easily to the Chalet School. Until recently, her and her brothers were more or less looking after themselves, and she's used to going to bed whenever she likes, doing her homework whenever she likes, and has never given much thought to the way she looks or dresses. At boarding school, things are different, and even though her idea for the school to start playing lacrosse quickly brings her new friends, she has less luck with the teachers.

This is kind of an odd book. Brent-Dyer had been writing the Chalet School series for almost forty years at the point, and she kind of makes a conscience effort to modernise her plots. Ruey and her brothers haven't just been abandoned by their father for any old reason: he's a space-mad scientist hoping to fly to the moon. I am not even kidding, it is hilarious/ridiculous. The other odd thing is the lacrosse: there is literally a chapter on lacrosse theory, and it read almost exactly like a text book on the subject. I pretty much skipped that chapter, in case you're wondering.

The other two books I read in this series were, as you can see from my handy list, not written by the original author, which is something I'm not usually super keen on. Cornelia starts off pretty badly, too - Roberts seems to be trying to ape Brent-Dyer's style, and it just feel awkward and uncomfortable to read. The writing picks up later, though, and the story becomes quite interesting - Cornelia, a former Chalet pupil, is travelling back home to America with her millionaire father, on board a ship that includes a former Nazi officer and his wife, and old school-mate of Cornelia. During the war, Brent-Dyer emphasised that just because someone was "the enemy" it didn't make them evil, and Roberts does a good job of carrying this message one. The Nazi officer openly hates Jews, but his wife confides to Cornelia that she herself would have gone to a concentration camp for helping Jewish refugees if he hadn't intervened to save her. He's undoubtedly a terrible person, and yet he is still human.

Taverton High was much more in touch with the original series as far as actual content went. It follows the school's founding family before the founding, as a poor (but not so poor they can't afford a maid!) family of siblings dealing with a lack of funds, a guardian who is kindly but out of his depths, and a very ill little sister, who is painfully close to dying. The narrative focuses both on Joey, the youngest sister who despite being constantly sick is also constantly in and out of trouble: and Madge, the eldest sister, who in the absence of her twin brother is the one who has to try and make ends meet. Among other things, it's an interesting look at English village life during the Depression that followed the World War I.

Brent-Dyer still holds a special place in my heart that Oxenham can't possibly replace, but I'm still keen to read some more of her books. I'm ridiculously close to having read every single book in the Chalet School series anyway - when I finally have, I'll have to find something else to obsess over. Oxenham may be that something!

Books 33 and 34 - Double your (mystery-solving) pleasure.

Titles: Shock Waves (1989) and Dangerous Games (1991)
Author: Carolyn Keene

Annnnyway, a while ago I read some Hardy Boys books and mentioned that Nancy Drew was about a million times cooler than they were. But! Having now read two Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys Super Mysteries I can inform you that it's probably only about a hundred times when they're hanging out together. I assume Nancy's coolness rubs off on Frank and Joe.

The first thing to tell you is that both of these books have HORRENDOUS puns as their titles. Shock Waves takes place during a seaside holiday, and Dangerous Games is set (during another holiday) at some kind of international athletic competition. The second important thing is that the characters have "grown up" a bit since their earlier books. By "grown up" I mean that Joe's girlfriend (or his favourite date) Callie... died. In a terrorist bombing. And now Frank and Joe work for some mysterious international organisation where they do undercover work. In other words, you need to suspend your disbelief even further than you had to back in the 70's.

Since Nancy is a girl, her equivalent grown-upness is that she occasionally has fights and/or temporarily breaks up with her boyfriend, Ned. Perhaps the writers went to the Todd Wilkins and Elizabeth Wakefield school of relationship writing. In the course of these two books, Ned proves himself to be jealous of pretty much every guy Nancy spends time with, particularly Frank Hardy. To be fair, Nancy thinks Frank is hot like jalapeños, but she loves Ned and would never do anything to hurt him, so Ned kind of comes across as a huge dick. Since in Nancy's own books he's generally really sweet and supportive, I'm going to choose to believe he's been corrupted by the Hardys.

Anyway, in Shock Waves, Joe's dead girlfriend's ring that is the only thing he has to remember her by, (sob), gets stolen. The boys are determined to track the thief down. Nancy, meanwhile, starts to think that someone wants her new friend Buck dead when he first claims to have seen a dead body and is then attacked by poisonous jellyfish. The cases turn out to be related! I did not see that coming. Most of the plot surrounds Buck hitting on Nancy, and Nancy not noticing, and Ned getting jealous. This is actually not what I look for in a mystery, Nancy dear.

Dangerous Games is so much more awesome. Nancy and the boys are both seperately called to investigate when an international sporting star starts getting threatening notes, and everyone, including Nancy's friends Bess and George (yay!) go undercover. George (who's the sporty one) turns out to be so good at swimming that she considers taking it up professionally, and the sporting star's sister is totally hot for her. This is awesome, because usually it's Bess (the pretty, girly one) that all the guys want. Sorry, did I say I don't want to read about relationships in my mysteries? I meant I don't want to read about melodramatic relationships in my mysteries. Meanwhile Nancy and the Hardys realise that the threat has something to do with a drugs scandal that happened five years before, and I totally called who the bad guy was going to be ages before any of them did. Clearly I would make a much better teen detective than the Hardy Boys! But not Nancy. Her and I would just hang out with George and Bess and solve mysteries and be BFFs for ever and ever and ever.

Sometimes I guess we'd let the Hardy Boys join us and, IDK, fight vampires or something.



In conclusion: I need to get my hands on some more of these books.

One last thing - I know I'm late posting again! But here's why:

His name is Frosting. Frosting the Snowman. He took a while to make.

Book 31 - Return to the Hundred Acre Wood, or: "'I wonder why things have to change,' mumured Piglet."

When books like the (apparently) long-awaited sequel to the original Winnie-the-Pooh books are announced, I always hear a little tinkly bell in the air. Well, less of a tinkle, and more like the CHA-CHING of a cash register. The House at Pooh Corner ends with Pooh and Christopher Robin coming to realise the Christopher Robin is going to have to leave the wood: he's going away to school. It's a poignant moment, a goodbye to childhood, an excellent end to a sweet, funny and imaginative story. So why does there need to be another sequel by someone who isn't even the original author?

Because people will buy it, of course.


Title: Return to the Hundred Acre Wood (2009)

Author: David Benedictus

Why this book?
A Winnie-the-Pooh sequel! I couldn't not read it, no matter how cynical I was.

So what's it all about anyway?
Christopher Robin is home for the holidays, which kick off with a Welcum Back feast for him in the Hundred Acre Woods. There are various adventures with those old familiar characters: Owl gives a Spelling Bee, Rabbit conducts a Census, Piglet goes down a well during a drought, and Pooh goes on a search for honey (of course). There's also a new animal in the wood, an otter named Lottie who fancies herself to be bit above the others, but nevertheless joins in their adventures. Also she plays the mouth organ, which is kind of cool.

The Good and the Bad
I think I can best explain the Bad by quoting one review I read of the book:

"...this isn't more of the same, this is less. ... Although not as poetic or as heroic, lacking sharp wit or the real emotions of love and regret of the originals, this faint shadow will sell thousands of copies because today we always want more."
- Kerry White, 2009. 'In which a reader gets a bit hot and bothered'. Magpies, Vol. 24

And the Good? Well, it's not Disney. Can I just go off on a slight tangent here and say fuck you, Disney, Heffalumps are not meant to be real what the actual fuck is wrong with you. David Benedicus at least understands that much.

So, should I read it or what?
For kids who love Winnie-the-Pooh, this book gets a pass. For adults looking to reminisce, I'd say stick to the originals.

Books 28 and 29: "There was nothing the two brothers liked more than tackling a tough case."

Do you know what teenagers love doing best? No, it's not drugs. No, it's not groping each other in their parents' cars. No, it's not dressing all in black and talking about how anti-establishment they are. Teenagers love solving mysteries! And I know what I'm talking about, because I spent about two hours last week hangin' out with the Hardy Boys.

Titles: The Flickering Torch Mystery (1971 revised edition)
The Secret of the Old Mill (1972 revised edition)

Author: Franklin W. Dixon, although he's not actually an actual person as far as I know.

Why these books?
Well... I found them at a flea market. And they were cheap! And they reminded me of my childhood! I couldn't resist.

So what's it all about anyway?
OK, I'm going to do my best to remember the actual plots of these books, but they are honestly so convoluted I can barely separate the two.

In Flickering Torch, the Hardy's detective father is busy on a case involving the constant theft of government property, so he fobs off a new client on to Frank and Joe. Needless to say the client is unimpressed that this famous detective is telling him that his teenage sons will take his case. But! Frank and Joe are used to being treated like this, because it is hard to believe they're so brilliant! The mystery has something to do with silkworms being stolen, and the brothers start working on the farm next door to the silk-worm farm, where they talk like the inbred country bumpkins so no one will actually know their true identities. For some reason, this actually works. Then, um, I guess there's a whole lot of detecting that goes on, mostly at night, and there's flickering torches involved somehow, and the boys' case improbably has something to do with their father's, and there's illegal mining involved? I don't even know.

The Old Mill was less confusing. There is money forging going on, and... you know what? It's not less confusing. The counterfeiting is somehow inexplicably tied to this new technology company that has just moved into Bayport, which keeps having its projects sabotaged. For some reason the criminals behind this scheme set their base in the titular mill, which is far less exciting than, say, an underground lair inside a hollowed out volcano. But! Frank and Joe nevertheless solve the mystery! Oh, and I just remembered there was some kind of motor-boat shenanigans in there. The Hardy's boat is called the Sleuth, just in case you were wondering.

The Good and the Bad
Man, these books are hilarious. Frank and Joe are pretty much indistinguishable, except that Joe is slightly more impulsive because he's a whole year younger than Frank (he was the one I had a crush on when I was a kid, incidentally). Neither of them have actual personalities, though. You can tell their best friend Chet Morton is comic relief because not only is he Fat, but he also isn't Super Keen About Mysteries! He is a Reluctant Mystery Solver! Is there anything more hilarious than that? Chet's hobbies involve eating, and also getting a new hobby every book (hilarious!) Alos, you can tell that this is a book for boys, because unlike Nancy Drew, who has a boyfriend she spends quite a lot of time with, Frank and Joe just have "favourite dates", both of whom are not only pretty, but also excellent cooks. That's what every boy wants in a favourite date!

So yeah, really, really outdated. Everything is "swell", everyone is a stereotype, and each page is so dripping with wholesomeness that it is difficult not to choke on it. These books were written at a time when children's books had Bad Guys and Good Guys and zero moral uncertainty. I mean, the Hardys are so amazing that they can tell who the bad guys are just at looking at them. This because bad guys are Surly and Unpleasant, whereas good guys have Honest Faces! Oh Hardys. If only it were really that easy.

Relatedly: You might want to check out Kate Beaton's comic about Mystery Solving Teens. I found it amusing and accurate!

So, should I read it or what?
Ahahahahahaha... hahahaha. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Do yourself a favour and don't ruin your childhood.

Later this week, probably: Fairytale characters that are alive! And, in some cases, dead.

Book 25 - Night Singing, or: "Who was that crazy person? Did you know her?"

This may not come as a surprise to anyone who has heard My Thoughts On Twilight, but I continue to wonder how it is that authors who can not actually write to save their lives become so popular! Twilight, for example, is pretty much pure cat dirt, and yet there is something about it which makes it pretty difficult to put down. Luckily I was mostly immune to its sensual charms, and after the ten millionth time Bella complained about how her life sucked soooooo much I finally threw it across the room and out of my life. Sadly, as I was reading it on my laptop, this dramatic gesture turned out to be quite expensive.

You know who else write a lot of dross? Dan Brown! I actually kind of enjoyed the Da Vinci Code, and I thought the movie was better than the book (possibly because I grew up on a diet of B-grade action/suspense movies) but Angels and Demons made me absolutely livid in ways that I can't even describe and will have to explain instead through the magic of MS Paint.

You tell 'em, Badly Drawn Hulk! Anyway, the only reason I bring up the subject of Authors Who Can't Actually Write is because of my incredibly awesome Link of the Day: Dan Brown's 20 Worst Sentences. I particularly enjoyed all the angry comments down the bottom.

Someone who can actually write to save her life is Kierin Meehan!



Title: Night Singing (2003)

Author: Kierin Meehan

Why this book?
Because I absolutely adored her first book, Hannah's Winter - and Night Singing did not disappoint!

So what's it all about anyway?
Josh has broken his leg and is bored stiff at home, unable to go to school - or even leave the house much. Then Isabelle, a girl from the circus, comes crashing into his life, and things start to get interesting. For one thing, Isabelle has offered him six tickets to the circus; and for another, she doesn't see other people in quite the same way as Josh does.

Josh is horrified when Isabelle starts bringing around kids from his class - not Josh's friends, but the loser kids, like quiet Reesie, Tim (who's actually in the choir), and Arundel, who everyone knows is trouble. And when Isabelle announces her intention of winning this year's Christmas Concert Josh knows she won't - after all, the resident bully Nasty Natalie dances to victory every single year.

Then Mr Vas, a clown in Isabelle's circus, tells her a story about the Moon Rabbit, and a terrible tragedy that destroyed the world. The story is perfect for the concert - but to Josh there seems to be something more to it. His neighbour, the elderly Mrs Murakami, often tells stories about the Moon Rabbit; and the same pattern that appears in her sketch book turns up in Mr Vas' paintings. What great tragedy lies in their past - and what does it have to do with Isabelle's play...?

The Good and the Bad
There were a few loose threads at the end of the book which irritated me a little - Meehan leaves the reader knowing the shape of things, but without giving us the actual details, which was kind of unsatisfying - what happens to Arundel, who has been abandoned by his family? Is he really related to circus folk? Does Natalie get her comeuppance? Does Isabelle actually win the concert competition?

I also imagine reading this as an adult is quite a different experience to reading it as a child; it was obvious to me right from the start that Mrs Murakami had lost her family to the Hiroshima explosion (although exactly how Mr Vas fitted in to the picture was a little beyond my ken!) Still, that didn't ruin it for me - there was still plenty to enjoy in Josh's slowly developing appreciation for the 'losers', and his gentle friendship with Arundel.

I haven't mentioned Josh's little brother, but he's also an important player in the story and he's utterly delightful. He's very much a little kid without coming across as either twee or monstrous, which so often seems to happen in books. Josh's parents are wonderful too - very loving but very human; Meehan portray's Josh's mother's frustration over his brother's refusal to learn to read very well, without demonising her at all.

So, should I read it or what?
I definitely loved it! It is a children's book, so I flipped through it pretty quickly, but it was enjoyable nonetheless. Recommended!

Next up: Um, I've just read another Agatha Christie, and I think I'll also do a companion post for this one on Hannah's Winter since it would be kind of interesting to compare them! Also, probably this week: A Friday Babble, topic yet unknown!

Book 21 - Rosanna joins the Wells, or: Poor people are more interesting when they're foreign

Have I mentioned before that I love book series? I'm pretty sure I have, but just in case I haven't: I love book series. Particularly the one that just go on and on getting more ridiculous as they go. The other day I saw an interview with one of the actors from the tv show Hercules, who said that once you get to the episode where you're playing your own evil twin it's time to get a new job because the fat lady is singing - there's no more new plots to be had. Perhaps Francine Pascal could have taken some advice from him.

Anyway, one of the many series I read as a kid was the Sadler's Wells series, which is pretty much about girls who love ballet and grow up to be famous ballerinas. Why this appealed to me, someone who can't even point her feet, and often resembles a dancing hippopotamus, is something that I will never understand



nevertheless, they were actually pretty cool books, covering themes of selfishness versus dedication, women choosing between career and marriage, and the early books had lots of beautiful descriptions of the English countryside. I'm still trying to collect all the books in the series.



Title: Rosanna joins the Wells (1956)

Author: Lorna Hill

Why this book?
Like I said - I collect the series!

What's it all about anyway?
Rosanna is growing up in Spain, the daughter of a Spanish father and English mother. Her family is poor, but she's loved, and happy. Then, tragedy strikes - her parents are both killed in a landslide while she is visiting the neighbouring village. However, she is taken in by a friend of the family, and she slowly learns to cope without her parents. In her new village she also meets a ballet teacher, who catches her dancing and decides to teach her for no charge. Her teacher sees that she's brilliant, and hopes that she'll one day get a scholarship to the Wells. Then tragedy strikes - er, again. Rosanna's guardian, who was pretty old, dies, and Rosanna get sent to live with relatives in England.

Rosanna boards a ship to England. She's pretty bored, and homesick, on the ship, until she meets a rather odd (but quite handsome) young man. His behaviour is bizarre to her, but it turns out that he loves ballet too, and they strike up a friendship of sorts. Unbeknownst to Rosanna, the young man is a Prince Leopold of Slovenia (don't grab a map, it's not a real country), and he is preparing to propose to an up-and-coming ballerina, Ella Rosetti. Rosanna is simply an amusement for him while he is on the ship, and once they hit land he thinks no more of her.

Rosanna's English family, the Waybridges, are pretty awful. Her uncle, her mother's brother, is nice, but is over-awed by his class-conscious wife. Her Aunt Bessie is not happy to have Rosanna joining the family, and does not welcome Rosanna at all. Her cousins, Monica and Cyril, are both spoilt bullies who delight in making Rosanna miserable. She's treated more as a servant than a member of the family, and she hates England. Still, life isn't all bad - she makes friends with a Spanish family who, unlike her own family, welcome her with warm hearts and open arms. They also encourage her to start taking ballet lessons again, and when her aunt tells her that she can't afford lessons Rosanna sells off the few expensive clothes she has.

Rosanna becomes the star dancer at Mary Martin's ballet school, much to the chagrin of Monica and her Bessie - until Rosanna's arrival, Monica was one of the best dancers. When she gets the leading role in the school's ballet show, the two conspire to keep Rosanna out of it - by locking her in at home, so she's unable to go. Rosanna finally decides enough is enough and tries to run away back to Spain. Her escape is helped by the boy next door, but when she reaches the docks she realises she'll never be able to stow away on a ship, whatever she'd been imagining. Then she runs into someone completely unexpected (if you've never read a book before) - the Prince Leopold! He listens to her story and takes her to the ballet school himself, where she's just in time to to perform her solo and catch the eyes of Ella Rosetti and the famous Veronica Weston. Leopold also takes it upon himself to tell Rosanna's aunt exactly what he thinks of her, which was possibly the best part of the whole book.

The Good and the Bad
Lorna Hill's early heroines are great, and her early stories show a great deal of humour. First there's Veronica, who has to choose between love and ballet, grey London and beautiful Northumberland, and who has to battle with both jealous dancers and her awful cousin, Fiona, but who emerges strong and victorious through it all, purely thanks to her own determination. There's also Caroline, Veronica's cousin, who loves dancing but deals with bitter disappointment when she's told she'll never be a prima ballerina; and cousins Jane and Mariella, who swap identities so that Jane can dance and Mariella, who hates dancing, doesn't have to. They were all interesting and charistmatic characters that you really cared about.

Unfortunately, the next generation of heroines are far less interesting. In her first book, Ella is timid and poor - that's all there really is to her. Rosanna is even worse, because while you felt Ella's dedication to ballet, you don't even really get a sense of Rosanna's love for her art. Despite being treated like an indentured servant, she not only takes the abuse - which is at least kind of understandable - but she doesn't even seem to hate her abusers for it. She's so passive it's almost infuriating. You do, of course, still want her to 'win' over her awful aunt and cousins, but the tension between her aunt and Mary Martin is far more interesting than Rosanna's. And, of course, it doesn't exactly come to a surprise that at the end of the book Rosanna leaves her family and joins the Wells - it's right there in the title, Rosanna joins the Wells. You know, just in case you were hoping for any kind of dramatic tension.

Something which is almost laughable is the way that Rosanna's life in Spain is idealised. It didn't matter that she had no shoes, we're told, because it was always sunny in Spain! Well, sure, but if you're too poor to afford shoes life definitely isn't all sunshine and rainbows, no matter where you live. This attitude is especially awful when contrasted to Ella Rosetti's background - she was also a poor orphan, and taken in by family who slept three to a bed. There's this romanticism of Rosanna's peasant lifestyle, while Ella's working class family are portrayed uncultured in the extreme and cruel. Nice.

So should I read this book or what?
Needless to say I can't exactly recommend this to anyone who isn't already enamoured of the series. However, if this does sound like it could potentially be your drug of choice, I do dearly love all of the first three books in the series. A dream of Sadler's Wells tells of Veronica overcoming great difficulties just to get an audition to the famous ballet school, while Veronica at the Wells is about her rise to fame and the sacrifices she has to make to get there. My all-time favourite, though, is No castanets at the Wells, in which Caroline Scott meets the intensely sexy Spanish dancer Angelo. They're all far less melodramatic books than Rosanna, but infinitely better-written and more interesting.

Unrelated link of the day: A Very Potter Musical - watch out for Draco, who is absolutely hilarious.

Books 18 and 19 - The New Housemistress and Carnation of Upper Fourth, or: Jolly hockey sticks (without the hockey sticks)

A double whammy this week, since they're both short books and both by the same author (and both of a genre that few people but me are interested in...) If you don't like books of the jolly hockey sticks variety, I suggest scrolling down to where I talk about the awesome movies I've been watching at the film festival. If you don't like films then... shit. I don't know. Maybe take a look at this excerpt from my favourite computer game instead?



Title: The New House Mistress (1928)

Author: Elinor M. Brent-Dyer

Why this book?
Firstly, since I have a driving passion to own hardcover copies of every book Brent-Dyer ever wrote; and secondly because it was going cheap on trademe. Oh trademe, where would I be without you?

What's it all about anyway?
The Middles at St Helen's School are very upset to hear that their beloved teacher, Miss Lessing, is leaving to get married during the half-term holidays. Lead by the charming and popular Barbara Allen, they decide to treat whoever takes her place as badly as possible, in a misguided attempt to stay loyal to her predecessor. Miss Oswald, the new house mistress, is determined to win the girls over, and almost does so when she saves one of the student's lives. However, Barbara is only more determined to show Miss Oswald she isn't wanted.

Barbara is badly shaken when she hears that her younger sister and brother, both living in India with her parents, were almost killed by a savage crocodile; only the efforts of a mysterious English girl saved their lives. Unable to sleep, she takes to the lawn in the middle of the night for a dance, where she is caught and punished by Miss Oswald. She also runs into trouble with the new teacher when she purposefully throws a tennis match in order to display her dislike for her.

In a final show of rebellion, Barbara and her friends put on a play for the rest of the Middles, the performance to be held in the middle of the night. The chosen play is based on the ballad of Barbara Allen, which, incidentally, I had never heard of before but a few different versions of it can be found here. (Warning: it is pretty dire.) The play is a success, but one of the audience members accidentally sets fire to the dormitories. Barbara finally realises how badly she's been behaving - but her realisation may have come too late, since Miss Oswald has been badly injured in the fire...

The Good and the Bad
This was a pretty quick read, which was a little disappointing since Brent-Dyer's books are usually comparatively substantial. It also meant that she had less time to develop her characters, which again was disappointing, since characterisation is really one of her strengths. As a result we really only got to know Barbara, and I kind of feel like I would have liked her more if I'd seen her before she started acting like a total brat to Miss Oswald. Miss Oswald for her part only narrowly missed being a 'plaster saint' - she wasn't completely perfect, but on the other hand, she did save a total of four lives in the story, on three different occasions, which felt a little heavy-handed (and by 'a little' I mean 'ridiculously').

Title: Carnation of the Upper Fourth (1934)

Author: Elinor M. Brent-Dyer

Why this book? I actually read this book online, which always ruins a little of the magic for me, but I've never ever even see a copy of it for sale, and also reading it online it was free. Sweet.

What's it all about anyway?
Carnation has been travelling the world with her artist father, and has therefore never been to school before. Her arrival on the first day of term immediately attracts the attention of Madge, the local doctor's daughter. Madge is given to running after a new girl every term but this year, for the first time, it seems that her friendship with Carnation will last. Their friendship is cemented after Carnation's father falls ill, and Carnation moves in with Madge's large, boisterous family.

At school, Carnation proves to be excellent at both tennis and French, upsetting her classmate Birdie, who was until Carnation's arrival the reigning champion at both of these. An inter-school tennis competition is coming up, and Birdie is worried that Carnation will be chosen to play - but she won't. She starts a petition to have only sixth formers play in the match, which infuriates the school prefects who see her behaviour as rude. Birdie, upset that her plan didn't work, refuses to play properly and doesn't make it into the tennis team - Carnation and Madge both do.

Birdie's friend Joan is one of her many followers. Like most of the girls at school, they're both Girl Guides, and are meant to be spending a weekend doing tracking practice. Birdie's brother offers to take them to see to a lake, if they can get permission from their Guide Leader. Birdie easily convinces Joan to join her, and doesn't bother asking for permission. Birdie also doesn't bother to tell Joan when she unexpectedly can't make it to the tracking practice. Joan takes off for the lake by herself and almost drowns before Carnation and Madge find her and save her life. Joan doesn't blame Birdie for what has happened, but when the truth comes out and Birdie gets into trouble, she blames everything on Joan and physically attacks her.

Birdie has now lost most of her friends, and she blames it all on Carnation. She is determined that Carnation won't get to play in the inter-school tennis match, and hatches a plan to lock her in an Art Room so she won't make it to the game. However, Carnation is freed in time to play her match, and Birdie decides she's better off leaving for another school.

The Good and the Bad
Despite being the titular character, Carnation wasn't really that interesting. I mean, she's basically good at everything she does, has no apparent faults, and is almost completely passive in the sense that things happen to her and she reacts to them. Yawn. Madge, on the other hand, is lovely - she's good-hearted and good-humoured, she's passionate and she doesn't really think things through; there's something about her which is very 'real', unlike Carnation. Birdie, too, is realistic - not very pleasant, but there were definitely girls like her at my school, some seventy years after this book was written! She came across as very charismatic, and it wasn't surprising that a lot of girls followed her lead, at least until the full extent of her character was exposed.

The story dragged in several places. The chapter on Carnation's father's illness was very odd; one moment I was reading a jolly school story, the next moment it was all praying to God and bedside vigils; then her father was completely out of the picture and it was back to the school story again. The tennis also went on and on and on; I mean, all I wanted to know was whether Carnation and co. made it into the school team, I didn't want a play-by-play of every single match.

So should I read these books or what?
Um. Neither of these are EBD's strongest books, although as I said, her characterisation, as always, shines through. Of the two I preferred The New House Mistress, but I'd still tell anyone who's interested to hit her Chalet School series first.

Lights, camera...
OK, so I've seen four films so far at the festival, and I can recommend three of them for you to see when they come to a Cinema Near You:

Bright Star is about Keats; or, more accurately, is about his relationship with Fanny Brawne. I'm not sure how true to life it is (and I suspect it's a lot more sympathetic to Fanny than many Keats biographies are) but it was a really beautiful film. This is coming from someone who usually hates romance in any shape or form, so the fact that I actually liked it should tell you how fantastic Bright Star really is. I think it's due for international release in about six months, so go and see it then!

The Baader Meinhof Complex, by contrast, was harrowing to watch. It is basically a potted history of the R.A.F., a left-wing terrorist group in Germany which rose out of the social protest movements of the 60's and 70's. One of the very first scenes shows police attacking peaceful student protesters, and the R.A.F. responds by blowing up a department store; the group continues to blow up buildings and execute the people it sees as fascists. Eventually the R.A.F. leaders are captured and subjected to horrific treatment in jail; but even then they have a huge following, particularly among the educated middle class. The movie does drag towards the end, but it's brilliant all the way through - and scary.

There are only two words that one can possibly use to describe Dead Snow, and those words are "Nazi" and "Zombies". Eight Norweigian university students go to a friends' isolated cabin to spend their winter break and accidentally awaken a sleeping evil from WWII. Again, can I just say Nazi zombies. Awesome.

I can't actually recommend the fourth film I've seen, as it was actually a selection of short films by the artist Len Lye. It was pretty amazing though - if you ever get a chance to check out his work, do!

The Friday Babble: Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

I'm going away this weekend - flying down south this very evening! Now, to the majority of my readers, 'down south' means, 'to a warmer climate'. Sadly, when you live in the Southern Hemisphere, the further south you get the greater your chances of freezing to death are. My luggage is almost entirely packed with thermal underwear and woolen clothing, but if you never hear from me again it will mean there is a new, somewhat attractively-shaped icicle somewhere in the heart of Dunedin, New Zealand.

Dunedin is where I went to university, by the way. The student flats there are renowned for their shittiness, and generally it was a good five degrees colder inside your room than it was outside in the fresh air. Generally you got at least one text every day from a friend which simply read, "Fk its cld." It wasn't that we were deeply invested in using abbreviations in our SMSs, it was because it was so fucking cold we couldn't move our fingers.

I remember those years fondly.

Anyway, returning to the place where I (mis)spent my youth - or as one friend endearingly nicknamed it, "that shithole" - has made me think about books where winter, especially winters of ice and snow, play a particular role. Traditionally, winter is seen as a bad time, which is pretty understandable. Winter was for a long time - and still is, for many people - the time of year where you can't simply live, but must try to survive; there was no work and no income, no fresh food, and families had to try and keep themselves and their animals alive until spring. If you wandered outside and a snowstorm hit, you were a gonna. Grim stuff, I know. And people still seem to have a deep distrust of winter, even people who can afford gas-fires and insulation and snowmobiles and a sexy wool hats with a pompom at the top.

So, here are some books where winter is more than mere scenery. If you do reside in the Northern Hemisphere I know this may seem a little unseasonable, but I guess you could always save this post and come back and look again in six months' time.


Title: Hatchet Winter (1996)
aka Brian's Winter and Hatchet: WInter
Author: Gary Paulsen
Gary Paulsen wrote a book called "Hatchet", about a boy named Brian who finds himself alone in the Canadian wilderness after the plane he's on crash-lands. It's a pretty thrilling book, all about how he learns to survive - forage for food, build his own shelter, protect himself from wild animals, etc etc. Since it's a children's book, it ends with the kid getting rescued.

But a lot of people wrote to Paulsen saying, "Surviving in the summer is all very well, but how would Brian have coped with the freezing winter temperatures?" In response, he produced Hatchet Winter, in which the boy was never rescued and is stuck for the winter. Brian's chances of survival suddenly get a lot slimmer. Also, he's attacked by a bear! Awesome.


Title: Child-44 (2008)
Author: Tom Rob Smith
As well as cannibalism there was a hell of a lot of snow. Are there any Russian novels in which there isn't any fucking snow?



Title: Moominland Midwinter (1957)
Author: Tove Jansson
Finally, a story where snow is actually seen as being kinda cool! No pun intended. Moomins always hibernate over winter, but this year Moomintroll just can't get to sleep. Instead he discovers everything there is to know about this mysterious time of the year - he learns to ski, he learns to ice fish and he meets the Dweller Under the Sink; but he also discovers there is a dark side to winter, and that death befalls anyone who meets the Lady of the Cold...


Title: The Snow Queen (1845)
Author: Hans Christian Andersen
I loved this story as a kid, partly because it is a fairytale in which a girl rescues a boy and not the other way around, but also because it is one of the few of Andersen's stories which actually has a happy ending. Seriously, the first time I read the original ending to The Little Mermaid I nearly had a heart-attack. It was also the start of my long-term vendetta against Disney, but that's another story.

Anyway, it's a beautiful story, and as a child I completely missed the religious overtones (for instance, Gerda says the Lord's Prayer to enter the Snow Queen's palace - I don't think I even knew what the Lord's Prayer was when I first read that.) It did give me the lasting impression that Europe is a terrifyingly cold place, though.


Title: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950)
Author: C. S. Lewis
First of all, you know that atrocious movie version of this book that came out a few years ago? We're not going to talk about it. We're especially not going to talk about how badly they raped Prince Caspian which I'm pretty sure they did just to piss me off.

Anyway, I love the Narnia series and I love this book. Even the overt symbolism of Aslan (aka as my homeboy, Jesus) bringing spring to the wintery land of Narnia which has been overtaken by the evil White Witch does nothing to diminish my love for it. I reread the whole series about once a year (except for The Last Battle, sorry) and it still continues to amaze me.

Although my seven-year-old self was really confused by the concept of "Always winter, but never Christmas!" Christmas happens in the middle of summer and anyone who says otherwise is wrong.


Um.

In conclusion, I think what we have all learned today is that winter is a terrible time, brought about by evil women who enjoy making small children suffer. Winter may very well kill you, unless you are a small Finnish troll or happen to have an ax handy.

An important lesson for us all.

The Afterdark Princess, or: The BSC wishes they were this awesome

OK, so I realise I was kind of ranty last post! Not that I don't stand by my rants, but I realise it probably isn't the easiest thing in the world to actually read. No worries, though, to divert my attention from the research proposal I'm supposed to be working on, here is a short and sweet book rec.

Incidentally, I don't like this cover nearly as much as the one I had as a kid. A dude on a staircase isn't nearly as cool as a picture of a bunch of people in a forest being mysterious and badass.


Title: The Afterdark Princess (1990)

Author: Annie Dalton

You've read this before, haven't you? Only probably a hundred times! My primary (elementary) school had a copy which I read over and over again. Needless to say I was pretty stoked when I recently rediscovered it at a used book stall.

What's it all about, anyway?
Joe Quail isn't a very happy kid. His mum worries about him too much, he has nightmares every night, he's useless at everything and he's getting bullied at school. He hates everything and everyone - especially his neighbours, Kit and Maisy. When his mother leaves him with Kit and Maisy under the charge of the world's most perfect baby-sitter, Alice Fazackerly, he knows he's going to hate her too.

But Alice isn't just a baby-sitter. She's also the last princess of the Kingdom of Afterdark, and her kingdom is currently under attack from Cosmo, the Emperor of Nightfall. Joe doesn't want anything to do with sorcery and danger, but when Alice and Kit are kidnapped he reluctantly realises that he's the only one who can do anything about it.

Joe battles trolls and dragons, defeats a monster in a dungeon, and finally climbs up the long, high Shining Stair to face Cosmo, and he comes to realise that in Afterdark nothing is as it seems - not Alice, not Joe, and not even the Emperor of Nightfall...

So what's so great about it then, huh?
It's a kids' fantasy story about a magical world where you can become the person you've always wanted to be. And it also throws in a few important lessons, about how it's important to get to know people before you decide whether you like them or not. What's not to like?

More about this series: Actually, I didn't even know it was a series until I bought this newer edition - the one held at my primary school didn't mention the fact, and I never thought to look before! I haven't read any of the sequels yet, but they are The Dream Snatcher (1998), The Midnight Museum (2001) and The Rules of Magic (2004). Needless to say I'm going to take them out from my local library as soon as my holidays start!

Conrad's Fate, or: The foolish man builds his house upon a crack in reality

You may notice I've done a little redecorating! The black background was giving me flashbacks to my late teens when I thought dying my hair black and getting umpteen piercings was daring and subversive. OK, so I still have the piercings, but I have come to accept my completely average brown hair actually rather suits me. Where was I? Oh, right! Slightly new colour scheme, which will hopefully make this blog a little easier to read. Expect me to fiddle with it several more time before I'm finally happy with it. I'm trying not to give in to my inner 6-year-old Disney Princess and change the whole thing to varying shades of pink, but I'm not making any promises.

There are many unanswered questions in this world. Why is it still unacceptable for science fiction to be someone's genre of choice? How is it that the Twilight movie was actually superior to the book? Where was that stooped and mealy-colored old man I used to call Poppa when the merry-go-round broke down? And how does Diana Wynne Jones, one of the best writers of children's fantasy - of any fantasy - alive today, continue to fly under most people's radars when she's been writing her amazing books for four decades?

This rec is dedicated to Jen, who apparently prefers wizards to cannibals.

Title: Conrad's Fate (2005)

Author: Diana Wynne Jones

You've read this before, haven't you? Guilty as charged! This was the first book I read in Jones' Chrestomanci series, and remains my favourite, although The Pinhoe Egg has to be a close second. I still remember how disappointed I was when I discovered that Conrad didn't really feature in any other books, although I live in hope that he'll make a reappearance someday!

What's it all about, anyway? Conrad lives with his mother, a distant parent and unsuccessful feminist writer, and his uncle, an amateur magician, above the family's bookshop. Conrad's elder sister used to single-handedly hold the family together, but after she left for university her responsibilities all fell to the much younger Conrad. Conrad means to follow his sister's footsteps and get out of Dodge, but his uncle has quite different ideas.

Someone up at Stallery Mansion is pulling the possibilities - making small changes which result in quite unexpected happenings. Sometimes the postboxes change colour; sometimes Conrad's favourite series of books has a completely new set of stories. Conrad's uncle explains that Conrad has terribly bad kharma because of something he did - or perhaps didn't do - in a past life. But he can avoid his own bad fate if he finds and kills whoever is pulling the possibilities.

Conrad isn't exactly enamoured with the idea of having to murder someone, but despite his best efforts he finds himself chosen as a new boot boy at Stallery Mansion, along with the superior and mysterious Christopher Smith. Conrad quickly realises he's not the only one with a hidden agenda, as Christopher reveals he's really there to find his friend Millie, who is lost somewhere inside the mansion.

Conrad and Christopher realise that Millie's disappearance is somehow related to the possibility pulling, and become allies in their search for answers and in their efforts to avoid Mr Amos, their boss. They discover that from within the mansion it's possible to make your way to a number of other worlds, each full of the ruins of other buildings. As Conrad gets closer to discovering just who is behind all this chaos, he reunites with his sister, Anthea; comes face-to-face with several ill-intentioned witches and a lively troop of actors; and discovers the truth behind the Stallery's noble family - and his own.

So what's so great about it then, huh? What I like about this book is essentially what I love about all of Jones' books - the way she crafts her stories, seemingly effortlessly, so that even apparently minor details are revealed to have significance in the book's conclusion, and so that every thread of the story is neatly tied into place before it is finished. She often gives us what I think of as a Grand Finale, with all the major and minor characters gathered in one place so that all their various secrets can finally come out, and the reader can finally make sense of all the hints they've been given. Jones is also Queen of Happy Endings - in her stories, everything always turns out OK, but without it feeling forced or false. Her books are simple enough that children can read them and enjoy them, but not so simple that adults can't love them too.

More about this series: The Chrestomanci series follows Christopher Chant, a nine-lifed enchanter, and his apprentice, Cat. The books in this series take place in various times in Christopher's life (and in a number of different worlds!) so that the chronological order of the books isn't necessarily the best order to read them in. The best place to start is with Charmed Life, in which the apparently talentless orphan Cat and his older sister Gwendolen are taken in by the people of Chrestomanci Castle, where (of course!) nothing is as it seems. Having said that, I read the books in neither chronological nor reading order and I thoroughly enjoyed them all anyway!

And if Chrestomanci doesn't sound like your thing, you might try the Castle series (the first of which is the much-loved Howl's Moving Castle) which puts a new spin on well-known situations from fairytales; or the Dalemark Quartet, which follows the journey of four different children as they overcome great odds to defeat the evil forces at work in the land of Dalemark.

Book 5 - The Lost Staircase

I have two weaknesses when it comes to reading. One is mystery-slash-detective stories (more on that later) and the other is British children's stories written in the first half of the 20th Century. You know, The Secret Garden, The Railway Children, The Famous Five... but I have a particular fondness for books of the Girls Own variety. You know, hockey sticks, midnight feasts, students wearing gymfrocks and calling everything "frightfully smashing!" Enid Blyton's Mallory Towers and St Clare's series are both in the middle of a revival, judging by my last visit to Borders, but my favourite Girls Own author is Elinor M.Brent-Dyer, whose best-known series, the Chalet School, spanned 45 years and 58 books - and she didn't even use a ghost writer. Take that, Francine Pascal and Ann M. Martin!

I've been collecting said series since I was about eight or nine and I'm still twelve books away from completing my collection. These days, the rarest of her hardbacks can go for hundreds of dollars, and I've even seen her paperbacks being sold for $150+. Naturally, the few I have left to go just so happen to be the rarest and the most expensive books to buy, but I live in hope.

Anyway, despite my absolute dedication to the Chalet School, I've never read any of Brent-Dyer's other books, so when a copy of The Lost Staircase came up for sale on trademe at a reasonable price I nabbed it!

image from: http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n34/n172484.jpg

Title: The Lost Staircase (1946)

Author: Elinor M. Brent-Dyer

Why this book?
Because of my deep abiding love for Brent-Dyer (see above).

What's it about, anyway?
Sir Ambrose Gellibrand has had his share of tragedies in life, and now, at the age of eighty, he has lost not only his children but all of his grandchildren as well. Realising that he is unlikely to live many more years, he contacts his last remaining heir, who will one day inherit the Dragon House, a large estate nestled on the Welsh border, dating back to the 16th Century.

His last remaining heir turns out to be Jesanne, a fourteen year old girl who is not pleased to be summoned away from her New Zealand farm and her beloved aunt by a cold and distant relative. Incidentally, Jesanne's full name is Jesanne Loveday Balthazar Gellibrand - awesome! What with all this emphasis on people nowadays calling their kids Jermajisty or Space Shuttle or Renesme or whatever, there's not enough children given ridiculously long romantic-sounding names. If I ever have a daughter I'm going to call her Jesanne Loveday Kickass Balthazar Dangerfield so that if she grows up to be a spy she will not only have an appropriate last name - Agent Dangerfield - but she'll also be able to say "Kickass is my middle name".

Anyway, as a 'Colonial', Jesanne struggles at first with the old-world niceties she is now expected to adopt. She doesn't understand why she's supposed to wear gloves outdoors, she hates the fact that she has a maid who actually dresses her in the mornings, and the 'dignity and solemnity' of the butler at mealtimes leaves her speechless. Jesanne is strong-willed, independent and proud, and it is unsurprising that she clashes with her cousin from the very first night of her arrival.

Still, as much as Jesanne misses her own country and her aunt, she slowly learns to love the Dragon House and its grounds. When Cousin Ambrose tells her of the legendary lost staircase, a flight of stairs leading the the Gellibrand's secret chapel which seems to have all but disappeared, her curiousity is piqued. With her cousin's guidance, and the help of her new friend Lois, Jesanne is determined to find out where the staircase is - and why it was hidden in the first place.

The good and the bad:
The worst part about doing a project on the history of book-making is that when I read that the Gellibrand family "Journall" was so old that its paper had been made from rags, and that its quality was inconsistent, I was immediately filled with girlish glee. But moving on.

As a 'Colonial' myself, I find Brent-Dyer's portrait of Jesanne's struggles in the UK to be fairly realistic. New Zealand has always prided herself on being a 'classless' society - and while this is arguably untrue, we have certainly never had the kind of class system that has existed in Britain. While Cousin Ambrose is no longer lord and master of the people in the nearby village, he does still consider it his noblesse oblige to help deal with any problems they face, and in turn relies on their (manual) help at times. The class divides are very prominent and it is only natural that Jesanne will notice this and react against it - although by the end of the book she has clearly absorbed her cousin's views and is prepared to one day take over his role.

Jesanne rebels against both of her authority figures, her cousin and her governess, Miss Mercier. But while Jesanne and Cousin Ambrose's relationship slowly improves to the point that they are able to love one another, Miss Mercier is never treated with much sympathy. It is obvious right from her introduction that she is meant to be an unappealing character; her voice is 'hard', her piano playing is very good, but 'mechanical' - she doesn't have the deeper level of understanding which would allow her to become a truly brilliant musician, and this same lack means she can never be anything but a passable teacher and an unsympathetic person. While Cousin Ambrose and Jesanne bond over their mutual love of the outdoors and animals, Miss Mercier think moonlight walks are silly, and is scared of all dogs, even puppies. While Cousin Ambrose is proud, even arrogant, he ultimately wants to do whatever is best for Jesanne, and is willing to adjust some of his own ideas and prejudices to do so. Miss Mercier, on the other hand, claims to be doing what is best for Jesanne when she is largely acting in her own self-interest.

What makes The Lost Staircase really stand out for me is Jesanne's family history, which is integral to unlocking the mysteries of architecture. How exactly does one misplace a stair? In the case of the Gellibrands, one does it by being Catholic during the wrong time in history - during the English Civil War - and having family members who, although fighting on opposing sides, are unwilling to betray each other. Unfortunately, this backstory is unlikely to make sense to anyone unfamiliar with the Civil War, and is probably the one thing which would make the book unreadable to modern children who would otherwise thoroughly enjoy the story.

So should I read it or what?
The Lost Staircase is very much a product of its time, with its unconscious classism and emphasised "Britishness". There is also a level of religious feeling to the book which I'm sure a lot of people would find off-putting, although as an atheist myself I had no problem with it, since Brent-Dyer's focus is always on the positive aspects of love, understanding and forgiveness. There's an almost innocent quality to the books given its fourteen-year-old protagonist; while Brent-Dyer is not shy on the subject of death, there are are no boys, no crushes, no peer pressure, and certainly no drink, drugs, sex or rock'n'roll - in short, none of the things that we would expect to be included in a book focusing on a contemporary teen heroine.

My judgement? If you know someone with a love for Girls Own, they'll love this book. Otherwise I'd save it for a bright eight- or nine-year-old who is not yet prepared for the ravages of teen angst.