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The Chalet School #14
The Chalet School in Exile
When Madge Bettany decides to start a school in the Austrian Alps, little does she realize how such a small idea will so completely change her life.
Now, in this classic series of books, first published in the 1920s, join the Chalet School's first pupil, Joey Bettany, as she forges strong bonds of friendship with girls from Europe and America. Independent, intelligent, resourceful, and bold--the girls of Chalet School make each new term and adventure.
Now, in this classic series of books, first published in the 1920s, join the Chalet School's first pupil, Joey Bettany, as she forges strong bonds of friendship with girls from Europe and America. Independent, intelligent, resourceful, and bold--the girls of Chalet School make each new term and adventure.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1940
8 people are currently reading
306 people want to read
About the author
Elinor M. Brent-Dyer
171 books112 followersElinor M. Brent-Dyer was born as Gladys Eleanor May Dyer on 6th April 1894, in South Shields in the industrial northeast of England, and grew up in a terraced house which had no garden or inside toilet. She was the only daughter of Eleanor Watson Rutherford and Charles Morris Brent Dyer. Her father, who had been married before, left home when she was three years old. In 1912, her brother Henzell died at age 17 of cerebro-spinal fever. After her father died, her mother remarried in 1913.
Elinor was educated at a small local private school in South Shields and returned there to teach when she was eighteen after spending two years at the City of Leeds Training College. Her teaching career spanned 36 years, during which she taught in a wide variety of state and private schools in the northeast, in Middlesex, Bedfordshire, Hampshire, and finally in Hereford.
In the early 1920s she adopted the name Elinor Mary Brent-Dyer. A holiday she spent in the Austrian Tyrol at Pertisau-am-Achensee gave her the inspiration for the first location in the Chalet School series. However, her first book, 'Gerry Goes to School', was published in 1922 and was written for the child actress Hazel Bainbridge. Her first 'Chalet' story, 'The School at the Chalet', was originally published in 1925.
In 1930, the same year that 'Jean of Storms' was serialised, she converted to Roman Catholicism.
In 1933 the Brent-Dyer household (she lived with her mother and stepfather until her mother's death in 1957) moved to Hereford. She travelled daily to Peterchurch as a governess.
When her stepfather died she started her own school in Hereford, The Margaret Roper School. It was non-denominational but with a strong religious tradition. Many Chalet School customs were followed, the girls even wore a similar uniform made in the Chalet School's colours of brown and flame. Elinor was rather untidy, erratic and flamboyant and not really suited to being a headmistress. After her school closed in 1948 she devoted most of her time to writing.
Elinor's mother died in 1957 and in 1964 she moved to Redhill, where she lived in a joint establishment with fellow school story author Phyllis Matthewman and her husband, until her death on 20th September 1969.
During her lifetime Elinor M. Brent-Dyer published 101 books but she is remembered mainly for her Chalet School series. The series numbers 58 books and is the longest-surviving series of girls' school-stories ever known, having been continuously in print for more than 70 years. One hundred thousand paperback copies are still being sold each year.
Among her published books are other school stories; family, historical, adventure and animal stories; a cookery book, and four educational geography-readers. She also wrote plays and numerous unpublished poems and was a keen musician.
In 1994, the year of the centenary of her Elinor Brent-Dyer's birth, Friends of the Chalet School put up plaques in Pertisau, South Shields and Hereford, and a headstone was erected on her grave in Redstone Cemetery, since there was not one previously. They also put flowers on her grave on the anniversaries of her birth and death and on other special occasions.
Elinor was educated at a small local private school in South Shields and returned there to teach when she was eighteen after spending two years at the City of Leeds Training College. Her teaching career spanned 36 years, during which she taught in a wide variety of state and private schools in the northeast, in Middlesex, Bedfordshire, Hampshire, and finally in Hereford.
In the early 1920s she adopted the name Elinor Mary Brent-Dyer. A holiday she spent in the Austrian Tyrol at Pertisau-am-Achensee gave her the inspiration for the first location in the Chalet School series. However, her first book, 'Gerry Goes to School', was published in 1922 and was written for the child actress Hazel Bainbridge. Her first 'Chalet' story, 'The School at the Chalet', was originally published in 1925.
In 1930, the same year that 'Jean of Storms' was serialised, she converted to Roman Catholicism.
In 1933 the Brent-Dyer household (she lived with her mother and stepfather until her mother's death in 1957) moved to Hereford. She travelled daily to Peterchurch as a governess.
When her stepfather died she started her own school in Hereford, The Margaret Roper School. It was non-denominational but with a strong religious tradition. Many Chalet School customs were followed, the girls even wore a similar uniform made in the Chalet School's colours of brown and flame. Elinor was rather untidy, erratic and flamboyant and not really suited to being a headmistress. After her school closed in 1948 she devoted most of her time to writing.
Elinor's mother died in 1957 and in 1964 she moved to Redhill, where she lived in a joint establishment with fellow school story author Phyllis Matthewman and her husband, until her death on 20th September 1969.
During her lifetime Elinor M. Brent-Dyer published 101 books but she is remembered mainly for her Chalet School series. The series numbers 58 books and is the longest-surviving series of girls' school-stories ever known, having been continuously in print for more than 70 years. One hundred thousand paperback copies are still being sold each year.
Among her published books are other school stories; family, historical, adventure and animal stories; a cookery book, and four educational geography-readers. She also wrote plays and numerous unpublished poems and was a keen musician.
In 1994, the year of the centenary of her Elinor Brent-Dyer's birth, Friends of the Chalet School put up plaques in Pertisau, South Shields and Hereford, and a headstone was erected on her grave in Redstone Cemetery, since there was not one previously. They also put flowers on her grave on the anniversaries of her birth and death and on other special occasions.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
January 28, 2015
This is a book that grows deeper and more impressive with age - and, by age, I mean the age of the reader. That's not often the case in boarding-school fiction or in literature aimed at a younger readership. But The Chalet School In Exile is that rare exception: a brilliant, bold blend of history and fiction that's really quite exceptional for its time.
In a way, Elinor M. Brent-Dyer's plot for this entire book was a necessary one: her fictional boarding school was located in the magnificent idyll of the Tiernsee (based on the real-life Achensee) in Austria. But, as World War II loomed large over Europe in the late 1930s, it became increasingly difficult to believe that a multi-national school of girls from all over the world could credibly remain in a country about to be overrun by Hitler's Third Reich. The series would either have to end, or to continue in a wildly different fashion.
Brent-Dyer chose the latter, and executed it with impeccable style and profound depth. The Chalet School In Exile follows the characters we have come to love as they discover that the world and people they have come to love are threatened by the onset of war. Erstwhile friends become enemies, swept up in the bloodthirsty blindness of Nazism, and schoolgirls must flee from the oncoming storm.
The first half of the book is an absolutely stunning accomplishment. There was no need for Brent-Dyer to tell this particular story at this particular time: she could have relocated the school off-stage, so to speak, but instead she chose to delve into the horrors of the early years of the great war with remarkable insight and prescience. The fact that this book must have been written sometime in 1939 (it was published in 1940) makes Brent-Dyer's observations on the Third Reich and the insidious, sinister way in which it operated even more spectacular. To readers today, much of it is accepted fact - incontrovertible truth. In her time, history was happening every day. The fact that she grasped it with such clarity is astounding in and of itself.
All the more impressive is the message she sends in her writing: one of acceptance, tolerance, peace and love; one that doesn't simply demonise the entire German populace (as was no doubt the trend at the time and in the many years thereafter), instead teasing out the differences between the German people and the Nazis in power. She finds a range of ordinary people in her characters, all operating in extraordinary times: some of them, people well-known to her main characters, are infected with the new spirit of anti-Semitism; others are conscientious objectors who are watching their country die every minute. It's startlingly realistic for its occasional flights of fancy.
There are, of course, plenty of such flights of fancy in the novel. It's hard to believe so much happens in it - escape from a frenzied mob, an arduous journey through Switzerland, a possible spy in the ranks of students, a plane crash - any one incident could form the backbone of its own novel. It can get a bit peculiar in the telling of it all, particularly when the novel settles down into a more traditional school story again.
Nonetheless, Brent-Dyer keeps it all chugging along quite well with her undeniable knack for characterisation. She's spent quite a few of the last few books wondering if the character of Joey Bettany will ever really grow up; it's the War that gives her the impetus to effect that journey at last. It's in this book that Joey weathers great trauma and finds great love, as well.
In later years, Brent-Dyer's books grow ever more insulated from the real world, subsisting in a pleasant cocoon of the past and tradition. But, at this point in the long-running series, her books have never been more alive. This acceptance of the real world in the lives of her characters lends her stories an emotional weight and truth that is usually quite elusive in this most escapist of genres.
In a way, Elinor M. Brent-Dyer's plot for this entire book was a necessary one: her fictional boarding school was located in the magnificent idyll of the Tiernsee (based on the real-life Achensee) in Austria. But, as World War II loomed large over Europe in the late 1930s, it became increasingly difficult to believe that a multi-national school of girls from all over the world could credibly remain in a country about to be overrun by Hitler's Third Reich. The series would either have to end, or to continue in a wildly different fashion.
Brent-Dyer chose the latter, and executed it with impeccable style and profound depth. The Chalet School In Exile follows the characters we have come to love as they discover that the world and people they have come to love are threatened by the onset of war. Erstwhile friends become enemies, swept up in the bloodthirsty blindness of Nazism, and schoolgirls must flee from the oncoming storm.
The first half of the book is an absolutely stunning accomplishment. There was no need for Brent-Dyer to tell this particular story at this particular time: she could have relocated the school off-stage, so to speak, but instead she chose to delve into the horrors of the early years of the great war with remarkable insight and prescience. The fact that this book must have been written sometime in 1939 (it was published in 1940) makes Brent-Dyer's observations on the Third Reich and the insidious, sinister way in which it operated even more spectacular. To readers today, much of it is accepted fact - incontrovertible truth. In her time, history was happening every day. The fact that she grasped it with such clarity is astounding in and of itself.
All the more impressive is the message she sends in her writing: one of acceptance, tolerance, peace and love; one that doesn't simply demonise the entire German populace (as was no doubt the trend at the time and in the many years thereafter), instead teasing out the differences between the German people and the Nazis in power. She finds a range of ordinary people in her characters, all operating in extraordinary times: some of them, people well-known to her main characters, are infected with the new spirit of anti-Semitism; others are conscientious objectors who are watching their country die every minute. It's startlingly realistic for its occasional flights of fancy.
There are, of course, plenty of such flights of fancy in the novel. It's hard to believe so much happens in it - escape from a frenzied mob, an arduous journey through Switzerland, a possible spy in the ranks of students, a plane crash - any one incident could form the backbone of its own novel. It can get a bit peculiar in the telling of it all, particularly when the novel settles down into a more traditional school story again.
Nonetheless, Brent-Dyer keeps it all chugging along quite well with her undeniable knack for characterisation. She's spent quite a few of the last few books wondering if the character of Joey Bettany will ever really grow up; it's the War that gives her the impetus to effect that journey at last. It's in this book that Joey weathers great trauma and finds great love, as well.
In later years, Brent-Dyer's books grow ever more insulated from the real world, subsisting in a pleasant cocoon of the past and tradition. But, at this point in the long-running series, her books have never been more alive. This acceptance of the real world in the lives of her characters lends her stories an emotional weight and truth that is usually quite elusive in this most escapist of genres.
June 7, 2022
A well-balanced blend of political realism, social history and good writing make ‘The Chalet School in Exile’ the most rewarding of the series to date.
Written in 1940, this really does give the reader a glimpse into daily life in the early years of the War and there are some truly momentous developments throughout in the form of deaths, marriages and births among the Chalet community.
One of the absolute highlights of Brent-Dyer’s career.
Written in 1940, this really does give the reader a glimpse into daily life in the early years of the War and there are some truly momentous developments throughout in the form of deaths, marriages and births among the Chalet community.
One of the absolute highlights of Brent-Dyer’s career.
April 5, 2020
April 2020: I got my hands on a Girls Gone By unedited version, and I’m fascinated by what Armada chose to cut in the 90s. Politics, mostly - paragraphs of discussion on Austria have been cut in half or omitted entirely. I don’t know enough about internal Austrian politics circa 1938 to know if that’s because Brent-Dyer’s depiction turned out to be inaccurate, or if Dr. Jen was considered verbose to the point of boring readers. Also cut: a bunch of mentions of concentration camps, lost jobs, imprisoned Jews, an entire chapter set in Switzerland, and a lot of discussion about the Chalet School Peace League; as originally written, there’s a coherence which lends the book a through-line missing in the more choppy Armada version.
This book boggles the mind. It’s very, very distinctively Brent-Dyer - and fabulous - and brave. Really.
February 2017: Five stars on the strength of this book's year of publication: 1940.
It takes real foresight to depict the Nazis as accurately as Brent-Dyer does here; doing that barely into the start of World War II (because surely this must have been written pre-1940s publication!) is astounding.
This is still a school story, so almost everyone survives - and Jo gets engaged and married and has triplets - but even the usual shenanigans are tempered a little, in a surprisingly mature way, by the menace of the war.
I'll need to reread this to really respond more to the story, but that's my main impression: there's a sort of heroic foresight to this, not just in its awareness of the viciousness of the Nazi regime, but in its willingness to acknowledge that not all Germans were sympathetic to the Nazis, while some ordinary citizens bought in fully and were spies from the start -
- though I will note that the casual response to Germany in the beginning, when Madge is shocked at the idea of war, means that the girls' careful behavior in the train compartment doesn't quite jive.
And I'd like to know how hair can go white overnight. Isn't hair dead? How can it respond to shock like that?
It feels weird to end on such a persnickety, unimportant note, so I want to reiterate how brave this book must have been when it was published - and that it still feels powerful now is a testament to its honesty and strength.
This book boggles the mind. It’s very, very distinctively Brent-Dyer - and fabulous - and brave. Really.
February 2017: Five stars on the strength of this book's year of publication: 1940.
It takes real foresight to depict the Nazis as accurately as Brent-Dyer does here; doing that barely into the start of World War II (because surely this must have been written pre-1940s publication!) is astounding.
This is still a school story, so almost everyone survives - and Jo gets engaged and married and has triplets - but even the usual shenanigans are tempered a little, in a surprisingly mature way, by the menace of the war.
I'll need to reread this to really respond more to the story, but that's my main impression: there's a sort of heroic foresight to this, not just in its awareness of the viciousness of the Nazi regime, but in its willingness to acknowledge that not all Germans were sympathetic to the Nazis, while some ordinary citizens bought in fully and were spies from the start -
- though I will note that the casual response to Germany in the beginning, when Madge is shocked at the idea of war, means that the girls' careful behavior in the train compartment doesn't quite jive.
And I'd like to know how hair can go white overnight. Isn't hair dead? How can it respond to shock like that?
It feels weird to end on such a persnickety, unimportant note, so I want to reiterate how brave this book must have been when it was published - and that it still feels powerful now is a testament to its honesty and strength.
March 20, 2013
I'm surprised to realise that I've not formally reviewed The Chalet School in Exile. I've mentioned it repeatedly across my blog, and made no bones of my admiration for it. So now, it's time to redress the balance and let you know why - and how - this book is outstanding.
Published in 1940, it became part of the narrative of the Second World War. Authors working in this time had roughly two choices (she says, generalising massively). They could either acknowledge the war - address it - or ignore it. Some of Brent-Dyer's contemporaries sailed gloriously into a lavender scented future that made no reference to the tumultuous events occurring in the world outside their books. Brent-Dyer, however, did things a little differently.
Exile is a provocative and brave book and one that reaches beyond its nature as a 'simple' girls' school story. This book is dense with ideology, and makes no bone in what it is. Just take a moment to think about that - a book being published, right when we're in the middle of fighting the war against Nazism - that deliberately - and boldly - points out that not all Germans are Nazis. That nuanced ideology doesn't end there, even after the Gestapo persecute the Chalet School community and lead to a group of the girls, Miss Wilson, Jack Maynard and Gottfreid Mensch escaping through the mountains to freedom.
Wrapped up in all of that, is some impressive notions on how women can fight war. There's a deliberate and conscious separation of the women of the Chalet School from the 'men's war' and even that most assimilated man into the community, Jack Maynard, very clearly refers to the Chalet School Peace League as "yours" and not his. Words and language are how these women fight - and survive - and the power of these words is potent, when the Peace League itself faces discovery.
So we've got all that, which to be honest is a book and a half by itself. But what we also have is a powerful journey of growth by these girl characters - a cipher if you will for the adolescent WW2 reader - and we have a society that we've come to love, surviving against all odds. The Chalet School - and therefore you - will - and does - endure.
Published in 1940, it became part of the narrative of the Second World War. Authors working in this time had roughly two choices (she says, generalising massively). They could either acknowledge the war - address it - or ignore it. Some of Brent-Dyer's contemporaries sailed gloriously into a lavender scented future that made no reference to the tumultuous events occurring in the world outside their books. Brent-Dyer, however, did things a little differently.
Exile is a provocative and brave book and one that reaches beyond its nature as a 'simple' girls' school story. This book is dense with ideology, and makes no bone in what it is. Just take a moment to think about that - a book being published, right when we're in the middle of fighting the war against Nazism - that deliberately - and boldly - points out that not all Germans are Nazis. That nuanced ideology doesn't end there, even after the Gestapo persecute the Chalet School community and lead to a group of the girls, Miss Wilson, Jack Maynard and Gottfreid Mensch escaping through the mountains to freedom.
Wrapped up in all of that, is some impressive notions on how women can fight war. There's a deliberate and conscious separation of the women of the Chalet School from the 'men's war' and even that most assimilated man into the community, Jack Maynard, very clearly refers to the Chalet School Peace League as "yours" and not his. Words and language are how these women fight - and survive - and the power of these words is potent, when the Peace League itself faces discovery.
So we've got all that, which to be honest is a book and a half by itself. But what we also have is a powerful journey of growth by these girl characters - a cipher if you will for the adolescent WW2 reader - and we have a society that we've come to love, surviving against all odds. The Chalet School - and therefore you - will - and does - endure.
October 17, 2017
It's only when I read the GGBP editions of Chalet School books that I realise just how much the Armada editions could cut out without ruining the books. The version of this I originally read had a whole chapter cut. It didn't really make much difference.
There are really good, really interesting bits of this book, but mostly it meanders on about inconsequential nonsense and then has the really big stuff (Joey's wedding, the triplets' birth) happen off screen.
Joey is at her bizarre best, laughing at letters that aren't even remotely funny, and being strange and inappropriate. She treats her babies as dolls, and seems more attached to her dog than the triplets.
This is a strange book, and one that does not stand up well to re-reading as an adult.
There are really good, really interesting bits of this book, but mostly it meanders on about inconsequential nonsense and then has the really big stuff (Joey's wedding, the triplets' birth) happen off screen.
Joey is at her bizarre best, laughing at letters that aren't even remotely funny, and being strange and inappropriate. She treats her babies as dolls, and seems more attached to her dog than the triplets.
This is a strange book, and one that does not stand up well to re-reading as an adult.
Read
December 7, 2010This was one of my favourite books as a child; it combines two of what I thought as a child were the best settings for girl's stories: boarding schools and the second world war. The fact that the second world war is a really good setting is probably just due to growing up with children's literature in the 1970s and 1980s when it was a fairly major sub genre probably because many of the people writing children's books at the time had been children themselves in the war. This book is different to others I read because it is actually of 1940 vintage.
Brent Dyer began the Chalet School series in 1925 and kept adding books to the series through to her death in about 1970. For the most part you can't much tell when the books are set, or I couldn't as a child. They are in some earlier part of the 20th century than I lived in but I couldn't have paced them any closer to their time if it wasn't for this book in the series. The original Chalet School was set in the Austrian Tyrol and by the late 1930s it was untenable for Brent Dyer to continue setting contemporary books in Austria because of the Nazi invasion. And so this story of the school leaving Austria and heading to safer climes was written. Unfortunately Brent-Dyer picked Guernsey as the new home of the Chalet School and had to move the school on again when the Nazi's invaded the Channel Islands.
The reason I was rereading this book is not just because it was a childhood favourite but because I read an Armada paperback version produced in the 1970s which I later found out were heavily edited versions of the original stories and this episode was one of the most heavily edited. There's a full summary of the changes on the Friends of the Chalet School website. The book has recently been reprinted in it's original form and I wanted to see what I'd missed for myself.
I'd always felt that the middle of the story was missing something and I'm pleased to find an entire chapter had been cut where I felt that there had been a gap. After the main characters make a madcap escape from Austria to Switzerland in the paperback we are suddenly plunged into ten months later in Guernsey. There is still this ten month gap in the hardback but the expunged chapter covers the short period spent in Switzerland and I agree with the FOCS article that this "doesn't half fill some gaps!".
On the whole it was enjoyable rereading the book even if I did find some of it a bit cringeworthy and not all of the things that offend me as a 21st century adult are things that weren't in my paperbacks. Everybody seems so much richer and posher than I saw them to be as a child and it's stated several times in the book that they school has mostly "cured Biddy Ryan of her Kerry brogue" which winds me up no end. Also the way that Jem Russell could buy up a nearly new 150 room luxury hotel on the off chance of relocating the school to it had me in hoots of laughter. Especially since he didn't ask his wife (who sort of runs the place) about it until afterwards. The general attitude of men towards women in the book is pretty condescending for the most part.
I don't think I'll be running off to reread the whole series but I did enjoy the time I spend with these old friends and I will be keeping an eye on what else Girls Gone By are reprinting.
May 20, 2009
Setting a boarding school in Austria was such a great idea... until World War II came along! And obviously, not even a fictional school could stay put. Loved this one, one of my favourites of the series. Very much "of the times" and all the more better for it; I'm glad E.M. Brent-Dyer didn't just pretend away the War and keep her girls in a cosy little AU.
July 10, 2023
With its ‘old fashioned’ language and values it was like stepping back in time. However the trials and dangers of the girls and staff were realistically written for pre war Austria. I had empathy for the characters as they adjusted to the sudden changes forced upon them.
April 23, 2019
Absolutely my favourite. Will need to read it again very soon. So much happens, it's hard to take it all in!
July 7, 2014
Elinor Brent-Dyer was an extraordinarily prolific author who wrote more than 100 books in total, many of them in the famous Chalet School series about a 1930s girls’ school set in the Austrian Tyrol. I’ve been collecting them for years and had been searching for this one in particular – the rare The Chalet School in Exile, set during the Nazis’ Anschluss of Austria. The girls of the school fall foul of the Gestapo after trying to save an old Jewish man from being beaten to death, and have to escape Austria on foot through the Alps. It’s an extraordinarily vivid snapshot of a time and a place, and one of the few children’s books of the era to deal directly with the terror of the Nazis. I read it when I was about 10, and it made a deep impression on me at the time. An original first edition hardback with the original dust-jacket showing a SS officer confronting the girls is worth over $1,000 (though this is cheap compared to the almost $4,000 you need to fork out for a first edition copy of the first book in the series, The School at the Chalet). I however bought my copy from Girls Gone By publishers which re-issue the rarer editions at a much more affordable price (and feature the famous dustjacket as well).
August 3, 2021
An important book in the lengthy Chalet School series, and probably my favourite. Naziism arrives in Austria, forcing the school to re-locate.
High drama surrounds the escape of a small group after a nasty incident, told with realism. Joey, still a schoolgirl at heart at the start of the book, finally grows up and surprises her family and friends.
There are warm friendships, believable characters, and an extremely moving ending in this realistic, contemporary insight into what it might have been like for teenagers of all nationalities as World War II got going.
Well worth acquiring in hardback or 'Girls Gone By' edition. Very highly recommended to anyone who appreciates school stories of this genre.
Latest full review here: https://suesbookreviews.blogspot.com/...
High drama surrounds the escape of a small group after a nasty incident, told with realism. Joey, still a schoolgirl at heart at the start of the book, finally grows up and surprises her family and friends.
There are warm friendships, believable characters, and an extremely moving ending in this realistic, contemporary insight into what it might have been like for teenagers of all nationalities as World War II got going.
Well worth acquiring in hardback or 'Girls Gone By' edition. Very highly recommended to anyone who appreciates school stories of this genre.
Latest full review here: https://suesbookreviews.blogspot.com/...
June 5, 2011
Another wonderful Chalet School book, this really intrigued me, especially as I have recently been studying that period of time in History (in which the book was set.)
For me, I was really quite saddened when the School leaves the Tiernsee for Guernsey. I found it to be a pivotal moment in the book, and although Guernsey was probably a nice place, it could never take the place of Tyrol.
Robin surprised me a lot in this book. I was still expecting her to be the clingy, angelic little girl that EBD has always portrayed her to be, however she seems to have matured a lot and this is such a relief. I thought she was never going to grow up!
All in all, I would recommend this book, to anyone.
For me, I was really quite saddened when the School leaves the Tiernsee for Guernsey. I found it to be a pivotal moment in the book, and although Guernsey was probably a nice place, it could never take the place of Tyrol.
Robin surprised me a lot in this book. I was still expecting her to be the clingy, angelic little girl that EBD has always portrayed her to be, however she seems to have matured a lot and this is such a relief. I thought she was never going to grow up!
All in all, I would recommend this book, to anyone.
November 17, 2018
I'm not a Chalet School aficionado, but was tempted to read this one by a number of favourable comments on a Facebook group I follow. The only other Chalet book I have read was the first one, so I was somewhat confused by the many characters who floated in and left without contributing much to the story. However, this book feels as if it is a significant connecting part of the overall Chalet story - many new characters are introduced who may be important in later books, and the stories of many old characters come to an end in this Chalet book. I am glad to have read it, but it did not tempt me to read other Chalet books.
February 21, 2014
A seemingly innocent agreement to avoid conflict casts the Chalet School girls into danger, and they find it necessary to flee their beloved Tyrolean Alps and the beautiful Tiernsee for a new location for the school. Madge settles on Guernsey, where she can borrow an estate for the duration of the war. (Oops!) As they struggle to safety, on foot ("Sound of Music" style--the musical, not real life), handsome young medic Dr. Jack Maynard confesses his love for our young Joey, and they get engaged.
October 23, 2014
Wow, this episode of the chalet school was so exciting! So much happened and it was so moving. It was great to see how the war was brought into the story and what exciting adventures they had with hiding the league document and then escaping from the Germans. And Jo! How quickly her life changed! Engaged, married and pregnant! I loved the descriptions alluding to her pregnancy, that she wasn't well or mustn't be bothered with bad news! Then Madge says is it all over! It moved me to tears the scene in the San when she visits the three girls. I think this book was the best yet.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 4, 2015
High drama, extremely well told too. WW2 forces the school out of Austria. What must it have felt like to read this book when it was first published in 1940, when London was being bombed night after night with high explosive & the eventual victory of the Allies still lying in the distant future? Elinor M. Brent Dyer succeeds in producing realistic and lively action sensitively balanced with moments that I think any wartime child would have found greatly reassuring.
November 11, 2012
One of the best books of the series. Far better read in its unabridged state (Chambers hardback or Girls Gone By paperback) as the Armada-abridged edition cuts a whole chapter and much more, and makes a lot of references that remain nonsensical. I'll leave a proper review for the book in the near future. Just a note for war historians: it's best read as a slight "alternate universe" with regard to the Guernsey plot.
July 22, 2016
Best in the series for plot, action, character development, and adventure.
Easily the worst for editing! Did Chambers actually *have* an editor for this book? It's not just the inconsistencies with previous books in the series - I can forgive those, it was a different world then - it's the inconsistencies within the book itself, even *within chapters*, that spoil what would otherwise undoubtedly be the best Chalet of them all.
Easily the worst for editing! Did Chambers actually *have* an editor for this book? It's not just the inconsistencies with previous books in the series - I can forgive those, it was a different world then - it's the inconsistencies within the book itself, even *within chapters*, that spoil what would otherwise undoubtedly be the best Chalet of them all.
December 7, 2018
Brilliant! This book resulted in my tears at the end. Friedas rousing speech left me emotionally ovetwhelmed as I was swept up in her words of loyalty and dignity and pride for the Chalet School. The remarkable occurrence of triplets left me astounded. A thoroughly good wholesome read. The social commentary of the era is a sober reminder of the 2nd World War and it's affect on the people a previously innocent world.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 17, 2010
One of my favorites in this series! There's quite a lot of history in this book, as it's set around the time of Hitler. Joey and a few of the others have to escape from their home, and make their way to safety to another country, as they're under suspicion of espionage. Joey gets engaged, and readers will be surprised as to what happens to her at the end!
August 13, 2016
Finally, an unabridged version! The cut down version of this instalment was fine enough but the original really is a wonderful addition to the series as well as being more fully a transitional piece, I think.
July 13, 2015
Unabridged hardback with facsimile dustwrapper; 334 pages (needs librarian editing). Read 22-23 February 2014 for 2014 challenge.
Want to read
December 9, 2014Another book I want to read because it was recommended by Val McDermid as one of her childhood favorites.
July 1, 2024
The best work in the series.
May 31, 2019
War comes to the Chalet School. Published in 1940, the book starts just before the Anschluss and ends a couple of years later in Guernsey, where the Chalet School reforms after it is disbanded due to the annexation of Austria.
This is a book which is full of so many adventures and stories - EBD doesn't shy away from the realities of war, though they are of course fairly soft focus, but she also clearly differentiates between Germans and Nazis - the response of the women and girls to the war and their awareness of what is happening is never (or rarely) to blame or hate Germany or the Germans.
Some highlights:
The Peace League - such a very Chalet School thing, and in some ways quite a small thing, but leading to so much trouble for everyone;
The attempt by the Gestapo to take Jo and Robin for questioning and the sheer bloody Britishness of everyone's refusal to cooperate;
Robin and Jo and the others leaping to the defence of Herr Goldmann, and the subsequent escape of Jo, Jack, 'Bill' and a party of girls through the mountains to Switzerland;
Gertrud(e) and her spy mission, her change of heart due to her immersion in the School and its ethos, and the response to the discovery of the truth about her situation.
To list everything that I love about this book would be to list almost everything in it. There are lighter notes throughout, of course, including Jo's babies (EBD rarely makes it clear that someone is pregnant; I don't know if this was usual for the time but it always astonishes me that someone can be enormously pregnant and yet the people around her don't seem to know). And oh, I was so pleased about Rufus!
Scrappy review, I know. But it boils down to: Probably my favourite Chalet School book. Excellent on many levels.
This is a book which is full of so many adventures and stories - EBD doesn't shy away from the realities of war, though they are of course fairly soft focus, but she also clearly differentiates between Germans and Nazis - the response of the women and girls to the war and their awareness of what is happening is never (or rarely) to blame or hate Germany or the Germans.
Some highlights:
The Peace League - such a very Chalet School thing, and in some ways quite a small thing, but leading to so much trouble for everyone;
The attempt by the Gestapo to take Jo and Robin for questioning and the sheer bloody Britishness of everyone's refusal to cooperate;
Robin and Jo and the others leaping to the defence of Herr Goldmann, and the subsequent escape of Jo, Jack, 'Bill' and a party of girls through the mountains to Switzerland;
Gertrud(e) and her spy mission, her change of heart due to her immersion in the School and its ethos, and the response to the discovery of the truth about her situation.
To list everything that I love about this book would be to list almost everything in it. There are lighter notes throughout, of course, including Jo's babies (EBD rarely makes it clear that someone is pregnant; I don't know if this was usual for the time but it always astonishes me that someone can be enormously pregnant and yet the people around her don't seem to know). And oh, I was so pleased about Rufus!
Scrappy review, I know. But it boils down to: Probably my favourite Chalet School book. Excellent on many levels.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 17, 2020
A book which is both exciting and eye-opening. For a book first published in 1940, the sympathy for the German people is extraordinary. And the mentions of anti-Semitism and concentration camps show that some people at least knew something of what was going on in Europe under the Nazis.
The school scenes are almost incidental. There's a secret document to be hidden, Nazi spies, a frantic dash over the mountains to Switzerland, Joey's triplets' arrival, a plane crash, and the return of old friends thought to he dead. But in among all this, it's good to see the Chalet School itself reestablished and going strong.
The school scenes are almost incidental. There's a secret document to be hidden, Nazi spies, a frantic dash over the mountains to Switzerland, Joey's triplets' arrival, a plane crash, and the return of old friends thought to he dead. But in among all this, it's good to see the Chalet School itself reestablished and going strong.
May 30, 2023
A LOT happens in this book. I honestly don't understand why they chose to cut The United Chalet School in half and not this one. However, while the first and last parts of this book are in different worlds and the fact that it was a bit stuffed this is a good book. Elinor M. Brent-Dyer doesn't gloss over the horrible things the Nazis are doing.
4.5 stars
4.5 stars
November 11, 2020
Read the new Girls Gone by Press edition.
This is one of the best chalet books, and reading the full text was wonderful.
If you have not read this chalet school book, it is worth it.
What happened when the Nazis invaded Austria?
This is one of the best chalet books, and reading the full text was wonderful.
If you have not read this chalet school book, it is worth it.
What happened when the Nazis invaded Austria?
April 6, 2024
Not the chalet school in exile but chalet school in oberland.
Says chalet school in oberland on front but chalet school in exile when purchased. Is in oberland so please bring out my favourite chalet school in exile in kindle. Only reason this is one star.
Says chalet school in oberland on front but chalet school in exile when purchased. Is in oberland so please bring out my favourite chalet school in exile in kindle. Only reason this is one star.
November 7, 2019
Thrilling and emotional! Miss Wilson is tops!
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