Noel StreatfeildBallet Shoes (The Shoe Books)

A story of hardships and teamwork, this is an excellent story set over a century ago in England yet easily readable today. It will enrich your kids' vocabulary and inspire them to greatness in their own unique gifting and talents.

I bought this for my five year old niece at Xmas, as she gets restless in the car, and I wanted to give her something that would distract her from the damn ipad. This is supposedly a classic (never heard of it, but the reviews were super enthusiastic) I go on vacations with my niece and my sister fairly frequently, involving long car drives. As soon as we started listening to it, I thought it would be over her head. It's pretty sophisticated for a five year old. Lots of semi-complicated plot. However, to my surprise, my niece was into it. She liked having three different girl characters to interest her, she liked their names, and she was interested in their differences. She liked the British accent of the narrator. She asked a lot of questions. I suspect she enjoyed that the girls were under the supervision of a young woman and not a parent, and she was intrigued by the dance angle.So the lesson is, don't underestimate the children in your life. Another plus, it's quite a long story, with a lot of discs, so there's always a new chapter to get interested in. The story is pretty evenly balanced among the girls. I guess adults aren't the best judges. If I had listened to this before listening with my niece, I might have exchanged it, but my niece was immediately taken by it.

“Making your name worthwhile is a very nice thing to do; it means you must have given distinguished service to your country in some way.” —Noel Streatfeild, Ballet ShoesIt all begins with a pair of shoes!Ballet Shoes, by Noel Streatfeild (1895-1986), was originally published in 1936, the first of what have become known as the popular “shoe books” she wrote. Streatfeild was surprised by its popularity and said it literally rolled off her pen as she wrote. The first edition of Ballet Shoes was illustrated by the author’s older sister, Ruth Gervis, and has become a timeless classic—a beloved children’s chapter book written for ages 8-12, although enjoyed by all. Two movies were made from Ballet Shoes, one in 1975 and one after the author’s death in 2007.Ballet Shoes is a magical tale of joy and wow. It’s a story about the unique childhood of three orphans, growing up as sisters with different origins, looks, and gifts, who discover how they can contribute to the world. The book is loosely based on the personalities of the author and two of her sisters and contains some serious girl power!! It will make you chuckle and smile, while it’s message is a testament that with enough hard work and determination, even the most impossible dreams can come true! You’ll be thinking about it long after the last page has been turned!!“[Anything) to do with happiness—it means hard work.” —Noel Streatfeild, Ballet Shoes

This was a nostalgic read along with an L.M. Montgomery-focused group on Goodreads; I think I wound up receiving it and finishing it too late to be useful in the discussion, but I was tickled to read it anyway. I have fond memories of Noel Streatfeild, although I don't recall reading this one. It was always fascinating to read about children participating in adult worlds; stupid as we all are when we're kids, being grown-up sounds so cool. Little do we know.In Ballet Shoes the focus is on three little girls who have each been orphaned and separately adopted by a peripatetic anthropologist (say that five times fast) - who has dropped each of them off into the care of his sister and his housemaid in their massive museum-like home and taken off on a new voyage. The voyage he is on as the book begins has lasted quite a bit longer than his dependents expected, and straits are growing dire. Boarders are taken in, which helps matters, and as the girls approach the age at which they can legally earn money on the stage, they enter a school where they will learn to dance and to act.In many ways books like this and the Arthur Ransome children-messing-about-in-boats books were and are as alien to me and my childhood as the most outré SciFi. Self-reliant children setting out and having adventures - unheard of. Here, though, the children have an awareness of the family's financial situation that is, I think, rare; the aunts hide the worst of it from them, but they do know that if their almost criminally negligent Gum doesn't manage to find his way back, and soonest, there will be some extremely uncomfortable consequences. Things have changed even since this book was written, to the point that in most of the first world today having to send three small children out to work - even at something as theoretically fun as theatre and dance - is extreme. But I think as a child it was captivating to read about it. Here are kids not too unlike me who if they had to could fend for themselves. They're doing something so very much cooler than going to bright boring elementary school every day, and earning money to help their family. Reading a book like this as an adult is, as mentioned, an exercise in nostalgia - not a reminiscence about or wistfulness for an unjaded time when I had adventures like the children in the book, but when I saw only the excitement of the adventures and none of the dangers or tedium.

My granddaughter is 8 and reads above her age group. She loved it

I never saw these books as a child! The series was mentioned in one of my favorite rom-com movies, You've Got Mail, so when I came across them on Amazon I just had to get this first one.I loved it so much I'm ordering the rest, for my own reading pleasure when I need a break from this insane world we're living in!

Very easy order and delivery process. The book was just as it was described. Glad to have it so quickly!

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