Movie Shoes for instance was originally published in England as The Painted Garden and Dancing Shoes as Wintle's Wonders.ĭespite Streatfeild's annoyance at such crass brand-name marketing, these books do have a distinct identity, not exactly like a series, but as a familiar world with certain pieces firmly in place and characters that surface from time to time.

She went on to write a total of 11 books in the series known as 'Shoes' (see box), although, in fact, the matching titles were a marketing gimmick of her American publishers, which she disliked intensely. She had minimal success as an actress, but she used her first-hand knowledge of the theater and of stage school in many of her books.Īfter several adult novels, Ballet Shoes, her first book for children (written at the age of 42), was an instant success, swiftly followed the next year by the popular Tennis Shoes.

Rebellious from the beginning, she insisted on going to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art to study acting and intended to make her career in the theater. My daughter, veteran of today's lurid teen romances, discovered the primmer world of Streatfeild with equal enthusiasm.īorn on Christmas Eve 1895, Noel Streatfeild was the middle daughter of an Episcopal clergyman, who eventually became a bishop. As a child, the Fossil girls were my friends, comforting evidence that nothing was impossible, even for kids. Streatfeild was a formula writer of the very best kind: her books feel comfortingly familiar without being repetitive.ĭespite their very British settings and what may now seem quaint ways, these books have not ceased to delight young readers and over the last few years have been reissued - as Dell paperbacks - in the United States for a whole new generation of readers. Although she wrote fiction for adults and many other books for children, her fame rests primarily on Ballet Shoes and the ten subsequent novels of the 'Shoes' sequence. The story of three adopted sisters, Pauline, Petrova and Posy Fossil, who worked their way through ballet school to success on the stage, became an instant classic, read by thousands of children and heard by thousands more as a serial on the BBC Children's Hour.Īlways better known in England than in the United States, Noel Streatfeild died this September at the age of 91, leaving behind her 34 novels, 16 books of nonfiction and a wide variety of radio scripts.

WHEN Ballet Shoes was published in 1936, 50 years ago this year, its popularity was such that Hatchards of Piccadilly rationed their queueing customers to one copy each, Bumpus bookstore filled its windows with pairs of ballet shoes belonging to famous dancers, and another store set up a special department just to handle that one title.

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