Funny world

[weaselett]

So I am (finally) up to the Chalet School at War in my reread, which seems strangely relevant. I also still kinda love Jack Maynard, who smacked two nazis' heads together before Captain America had ever punched one. (And thankfully, I really hope, no one has ever done to Jack what marvel has done to Steve :/ - funnily enough in Exile, with that

Comments

[lost_spook]

I think the thing with the Chalet School books, for all their faults, they really capture a time, and EBD was quite liberal and open minded (there is such a massive point of not blaming all Germans for what's happening - and it was published at the time, not in the modern time, distant from it all).This is something i'm repeatedly struck by on re-reads. Given what I recall of other school stories, they either ignored it (Blyton mostly did) or were very patriotic and fought spies (Dimsie books) and reading social history suggests that her attitude was in fact pretty radical. Her Chalet School Peace League might well have been thought as dodgy by many British as by any Germans

[weaselett]

Yes - I really do wonder what people thought of her at the time (though possibly men were too busy with other things to bother with women's books...)

It has aged well (and omg so many doctors pop up just to be married to Chalet School girls - or lawyers, or rich guys with far flung jobs - and much as I love her, Joey is totally the self insert dream version of the author) I think the thing that always grieves me the worst is the 'only unmarried women teach' thing - I half dread someone getting it into their head to do to the Chalet School books what they've done to the Famous Five books....though thankfully they are relatively niche and little known.

Heee - I don't know if I have a favourite......but Exile certainly is one of the better of the books!

[lost_spook]

I suspect she rather went under the radar - a long-running, slightly religious school series, hardly great lit