HaHA. A while ago I read the first two volumes of Streatfeild’s slightly-fictionalized autobiography, and I could not get the third one. I believe I rather fatalistically said the library didn’t have it and it was out of print and I’d never ever find out what happened to Noel Streatfeild. Obvious nonsense because of course we know she became a classic writer of children’s books. But anyway the public library here shocked me by having the third book, and I read it on Sunday after church. I dunno. My feelings were mixed. I liked reading about Streatfeild’s becoming a writer. …
17 CommentsTag: Noel Streatfeild
A discontented blog post about quite a quantity of books
Published 31 May 2010
by
Gin Jenny
My sister kindly met me at the public library on Saturday and lent me her library card. She also gave me a baseball cap, which she assures me I should use any time I visit the public library because it will ward off the attentions of creepy old dudes. I did not take the baseball cap, nor was I bothered by creepy old dudes, but I mostly frequented the children & YA sections, which maybe is not where the creepy old dudes hang out. I checked out loads of books, and none of the ones I have read so far…
35 CommentsMothering Sunday, Noel Streatfeild
Published 30 Sep 2009
by
Gin Jenny
Mothering Sunday is the first Streatfeild book I’ve read that was written for adults – unless you count On Tour, which I guess you maybe could since it talks (albeit obliquely) about Victoria’s shocking flirty behavior. In Mothering Sunday, Anna, the mother of five grown-up children, has started acting strangely. She refuses to allow her favorite granddaughter to visit anymore; there are rumors that she has taken to wandering around aimlessly at night; and she refuses to even mention the name of her youngest son, Tony, who is involved in some unnamed disgrace. The four older children agree to get…
8 CommentsNoel Streatfeild
Published 20 Sep 2009
by
Gin Jenny
I love me some Noel Streatfeild. Turns out, she wrote several fictionalized autobiographical books about her life, and I just read two of them, A Vicarage Family and On Tour. I think there is one more but my library very unobligingly does not have it. She was the second of four children, and often felt out of place in her family. Her older sister, Isobel, had asthma and as they had not yet invented the glory that is Albuterol, she was often an invalid. The younger sister, Louise, was the beauty of the family and apparently never gave any trouble…
20 Comments