Which of the "Shoes" book series should I get?

[Aludlam]

I'm trying to purchase up our book needs for the next 2 years (moving to China). I've found Dancing Shoes by Noel Streatfeild on our bookshelf - thrift store purchase. I see on Amazon that there are several books in the series. If you are a fan of the series, which others should I get? Which are your favorites and which are so so?

 

thanks

[Slipper]

I love the shoes books! I enjoyed Ballet Shoes, Skating Shoes and to a lesser degree Theatre Shoes. I plan on getting a few more Shoes books for Christmas.

[nmoira]

I'd start with Ballet Shoes, though we've enjoyed all we're read (including Party Shoes, which surprised me). We also particularly enjoyed Circus Shoes (aka The Circus is Coming). If you read a few of them and would like more, I'd highly recommend A Vicarage Family and, for an older child with interest, Away from the Vicarage and Beyond the Vicarage. These are semi-autobiographical, the first being the most heavily fictionalized.

 

http://www.whitegauntlet.com.au/noelstreatfeild/Biog.htm

[momto2Cs]

I loved those books growing up! Ones I especially enjoyed were:

 

Ballet Shoes

Theater Shoes

Skating Shoes

Tennis Shoes

Family Shoes

Traveling Shoes

Circus Shoes

 

There are good books outside the Shoes series too, like the Gemma series, Thursday's Child, The Children on the Top Floor, and so forth.

[chepyl]

Ballet shoes was my favorite!

[morosophe]

Skating Shoes was definitely my favorite. I think I liked the incursion of the random business-man brother, but the A-plot is definitely a winner. Ballet Shoes has its own charm, as well, and many of the other "Shoes" books tie into the characters of Ballet Shoes, so your kids can enjoy thinking, "Oh, there's a Fossil! Neat!" Theater Shoes is wonderful, too.

 

Dancing Shoes--the one you already own--was actually a disappointment to me; there are too many selfish and vain people, and the main character, while not terribly vain, is selfish in a different way, although she doesn't realize it. She gets straightened out by the end, but meanwhile, that book just draaaags. So, if you loved it, take my advice with a grain of salt!

 

Similarly, Movie Shoes has the "difficult" (read: obnoxious) child as the main character--she's typecast as Mary Lennox because she's so surly. Also, it doesn't really seem to have much of a plot; it reads more like a short story or novella.

 

And those are all the Shoes books I've read. I want to buy Skating Shoes for myself, though--forget not having any daughters! Why should I be deprived of my Streatfield, simply because no one else wants her? :p

 

By the way, I found this great site for information on Streatfield's books. I second the recommendation to check out some of her other books, as well.

[kiana]

I love them all. But some on the very top of my list were:

 

Tennis Shoes

Travelling Shoes

Circus Shoes

[Jay3fer]

Really??? The others are good?

 

I grew up on Ballet Shoes but seriously thought the others were just cheesy rip-offs. I mean, "ballet shoes" are a real thing (I've worn them), but what are "Movie Shoes"? Even the titles strike me as cheesy. :001_huh:

 

I also adore the original 1970s-era British movie, with the Russian-accented "madame."

 

Seriously, sorry to sound so skeptical... the others really do compare to a book as iconic as Ballet Shoes???:ohmy:

[morosophe]

Really??? The others are good?

 

I grew up on Ballet Shoes but seriously thought the others were just cheesy rip-offs. I mean, "ballet shoes" are a real thing (I've worn them), but what are "Movie Shoes"? Even the titles strike me as cheesy. :001_huh:

:ohmy:

 

Well, Skating Shoes are probably usually known as "skates," so you may have a point...

 

Except that that's the American title. The original (British) title was White Boots. Similarly, Movie Shoes was originally The Painted Garden. We Americans just kept giving her books funky "Shoe" names, presumably to brand them a bit better. The only ones with "Shoes" originally in the title are Ballet Shoes, Tennis Shoes, and Ballet Shoes for Anna, the latter of which isn't even really considered a "Shoe" book. See this link for more information.

[Jenny in Florida]

One thing no one has yet mentioned is that they aren't really a "series" in the sense that the books make up a continuing story. Each book stands alone, as I recall.

 

"Ballet Shoes" remains one of my favorite books, one I still re-read every few years. I also loved "Circus Shoes" as a kid.

 

A personal side note: When I re-read "Ballet Shoes" for the first time after we had started homeschooling, I realized that reading that book as a kid had probably helped lay the groundwork for becoming a homeschooling mom. I also think it's funny that I've ended up raising two theatre kids, whose lives frequently remind me of those of the Fossils. Life imitating art, and all of that.

[kiana]

Yes, there are only a few books in which anything at all continues -- Theatre shoes, for example, is post-ww2 at the same school, and the fossils are mentioned. They're also mentioned (iirc, briefly) in a painted garden.

 

They're really not cheesy rip-offs -- they're all by the same author, and the "shoes" names were added later in most cases :P