Ballet Shoes

I've owned this copy of Ballet Shoes for so long that I don't remember if it ever had a paper cover; this reprint dates from 1968, but I think I received it while we were living in New Guinea, in the early 1970s. This hardback cost $1.50! I know I was immediately enchanted with it and read it dozens of times, though during this re-reading (the first for many years), I was struck by how little plot there is. The story is very episodic. The three babies arrive and grow up, money runs out, the rooms in the vast house in Cromwell Rd are let out to a number of extremely useful lodgers who can tutor the children for nothing, drive them here and there, teach them dancing and lend them money (the only one who is a bit useless is Mrs Simpson, no wonder they wrote her out of the BBC adaptation). The girls take part in various stage productions and in the end, Great Uncle Matthew comes home and they are all going to scatter to live out their dreams (more or less).

But I remember what I particularly loved was the granular detail of the lives of Pauline, Petrova and Posy. I loved the reproductions of Pauline's licence application, the script extract from The Blue Bird, and the charming illustrations by Streatfeild's sister, Ruth Gervis.

I was surprised when my daughters (not knowing I was re-reading the book) started discussing the TV adaptation. The younger one was apparently quite traumatised by the depiction of Madame's death (she doesn't die in the book), and the older one went off on a segue about being traumatised by Little Women, which I honestly couldn't remember even reading to her. Did I really read the fake newspaper parts? Oh well. At least these books are now part of my children's DNA, just as they are part of mine, for good or ill.