Streatfeild, "Ballet Shoes"

[elettaria]

Every time I read or watch something with disability in it, I always think I must post about it here, and I never get round to it! Anyway, I had a random craving to reread this old children's book over the last couple of days. It was written in 1936, has been immensely popular ever since, and it's about three sisters who go to a stage school. I

Comments

[arctowardthesun]

I love Ballet Shoes, I've read it like 3 times.

[elettaria]

It's very endearing, isn't it.

[karalianne]

I haven't read it, but a couple of years ago I stumbled across the movie with Emma Watson and thoroughly enjoyed it. Now I guess I'd better see if I can lay hands on the book! :D

[elettaria]

I watched the film the other week, it was very sweet and generally true to the book. Gum's wooden leg was skipped, but on the other hand more fuss was made about Garnie's ill health (and Garnie got a romance as well).

[lilacsigil]

Of course, the three girls can only make their progress on the stage thanks to being healthy and attractive, but the novel is very conscious of the fragility of that.

Yes, especially as Petrova is shown as not attractive or talented compared to her sisters or Winifred, though she is hard-working. And Garnie's tuberculosis (which will very soon be curable with antibiotics!) is a constant thread through the books. That's a lovely parallel you draw with a found family and disability and LGBT people, too!

[elettaria]

I was just trying to work out why that element really spoke to me, and that seemed a good explanation.

Do they turn up in other books, then? I have vague memories of someone at the end of another book meeting the grown-up film star Pauline Fossil, but have no idea which book it was.

Another odd thing is that I watched the film before rereading the book. The film made much of Garnie's TB, and I had vague memories of that, so it fitted. Then I reread the book, didn't notice Garnie's TB being mentioned (if it was, I missed it, though I remember her being described as tired and getting grey hairs), and was rather puzzled.

[lilacsigil]

Pauline shows up as an adult film star in "The Painted Garden" and they're mentioned in "Curtain Up" though I don't think they're ever main characters again.

In the book it didn't say "TB" or "consumption" but it used all the pre-antibiotics codes for it - Garnie coughed into a hanky, had a condition that warmer weather would improve, got pale and wan, etc.

[nightengalesknd]

They are pen-pals and scholarship sponsors of the three sibling protagonists in Theatre Shoes (which I think is the US name for Curtain Up - they Shoes-ed pretty much all the names of her other books)

I just re-read these two last year! I had no idea there was a movie, and now I'm not sure if I want to see it or if I would just end up screaming at the continuity changes.

I completely missed the TB references, which is personally apalling as someone who combs books for the medical and disability stuff. I mean, I slurped up all the gastric influenza and whooping cough bits. . .

Is there text behind your spoiler cut? I keep clicking on the hyperlink and it keeps sending me to the same post with the hyperlink.