Boxed Gift Set with three best-loved contemporary classics for girls: Ballet Shoes For Anna, Mary Poppins & White Boots.
Ballet Shoes For Anna by Noel Streatfeild
Three children, having lost their parents in an earthquake come to England to
live with a prim uncle and a feeble aunt. Anna lives only to dance – but her
uncle forbids her to have anything to do with ballet. How will she survive?
Praise for Noel Streatfeild: “Noel Streatfeild’s position in the
children’s book world is unique. She is endlessly inventive, full of verve
and real understanding of the surfaces of childhood. Her stories are rich in
documentary interest and entertainment, escapism of a most satisfying sort.”
TLS “Noel Streatfeild has that happy, skilful knack of turning her characters
into real people – something which only really good novelists can do.” BBC
Children’s Hour
Mary Poppins by P.L Travers:
When Mary Poppins arrives at Number Seventeen Cherry Tree Lane on a gust of the
East Wind and slides up the bannister, Jane and Michael’s lives are
transformed beyond belief. Mary takes them on the most exciting and magical
journeys they’ve ever had. But she has only promised to stay until the wind
changes…
“Like all great children’s classics Mary Poppins is frightening and sad as
well as magic and very funny.” The Observer “Absolutely alive, and aglint
with magic.” Walter de la Mare
White Boots by Noel Streatfeild:
Harriet is told that she must take up ice-skating in order to improve her
health. She isn’t much good at it, until she meets Lalla Moore, a young
skating star. Now Harriet is getting better and better on the ice, and Lalla
doesn’t like it. Does Harriet want to save their friendship more than she
wants to skate?
Praise for Noel Streatfeild: “Noel Streatfeild’s position in the
children’s book world is unique. She is endlessly inventive, full of verve
and real understanding of the surfaces of childhood. Her stories are rich in
documentary interest and entertainment, escapism of a most satisfying sort.”
TLS “Noel Streatfeild has that happy, skilful knack of turning her characters
into real people – something which only really good novelists can do.” BBC
Children’s Hour
Author Biography
Noel Streatfeild grew up in a vicarage. Her father eventually became Bishop of Lewes. Noel trained as an actress, and acted for nine years before writing her first book, for adults. She did not write her first (and most famous) children's book until 1936 – Ballet Shoes. Thereafter she wrote more than thirty other children's books, some of which were televised, and all of which were hugely popular. Noel died in 1986. P.L. Travers was born in 1899 in Maryborough in Queensland, Australia and was one of three sisters. She worked as a secretary, a dancer and an actress, but writing was P.L. Travers's real love, and for many years she was a journalist. It was while recuperating from a serious illness that she wrote Mary Poppins – “to while away the days, but also to put down something that had been in my mind for a long time”, she said. She recieved an OBE in 1977, and died in 1996.