What do you think?
Rate this book
The Chalet School #47
A Future Chalet School Girl
Melanie's chickenpox brings forward her move to a new school in Switzerland. When she and her aunt travel to Geneva they meet Joey Maynard, who suggests that Melanie stays with her and her family to convalesce. She realizes that going to the Chalet School would more than equal her old one.
216 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1962
About the author
Elinor M. Brent-Dyer
174 books113 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.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
December 20, 2020
It recently hit me that there were still a few titles to do in my review of the Chalet School series and, that A Future Chalet School Girl is quite poor in every definition of the word, so where else to start but there? We all know this part of the series is not great, so any review of these books from this period need a star knocked off on principle. But then, there's an argument for whacking a whole ton of stars onto this book and that argument is this:
MINIBUSES.
There is not enough minibus content in children's literature and I, for one, enjoy detailed descriptions of sitting arrangements. And seatbelts. And hammocks slung between the aisles for the babies to sleep in. And how many miles it does to the litre (hysterically sidestepped by EBD who just writes "the man told him" and moves on). I LOVE IT. I love it because it's all so delightfully ridiculous. And the amount of drama that we get from it? Amazing.
The plot, for what it's worth, is thin. We're on holiday! A new girl randomly joins up with everybody for a couple of weeks and she has the most amazing connection to the Chalet School that you'll never guess (you will guess, you will adore it, you will loathe it)! An old girl cameos (who, what? oh my gosh you'll never guess where she lives!) and I am being mean here because it's all so silly but utterly wonderful at the same time. I love it, immensely, even when a recovering invalid has soup followed a jam omelette and washes it all down with a glass of milk yellow with cream (none of that meal is a good thing, none of it). It's adorable, but so, so dull all at the same time, which is quite the fascinating achievement in my book.
Seatbelts!
MINIBUSES.
There is not enough minibus content in children's literature and I, for one, enjoy detailed descriptions of sitting arrangements. And seatbelts. And hammocks slung between the aisles for the babies to sleep in. And how many miles it does to the litre (hysterically sidestepped by EBD who just writes "the man told him" and moves on). I LOVE IT. I love it because it's all so delightfully ridiculous. And the amount of drama that we get from it? Amazing.
The plot, for what it's worth, is thin. We're on holiday! A new girl randomly joins up with everybody for a couple of weeks and she has the most amazing connection to the Chalet School that you'll never guess (you will guess, you will adore it, you will loathe it)! An old girl cameos (who, what? oh my gosh you'll never guess where she lives!) and I am being mean here because it's all so silly but utterly wonderful at the same time. I love it, immensely, even when a recovering invalid has soup followed a jam omelette and washes it all down with a glass of milk yellow with cream (none of that meal is a good thing, none of it). It's adorable, but so, so dull all at the same time, which is quite the fascinating achievement in my book.
Seatbelts!
July 1, 2024
One of the better books from the latter books of the series. Various EBD cliche situations but enjoyable
January 14, 2024
Loved this one. The idyllic picture of life it paints is what draws me to these books.
May 5, 2025
Mélanie Lucas doesn’t want to move abroad, but even she is excited when she ends up spending a few weeks on holiday with her favourite author Josephine M. Bettany. Mélanie soon feels like part of Joey’s long family - but when the three Richardsons join them, all her jealousy comes to the surface. Will she ever be friends with Ruey?
This is a special book because it is Elinor M. Brent-Dyer’s last look at the Tiernsee. Jo’s family are now established there, and for someone who had not visited its real-life counterpart in years, EBD does a wonderful job of evoking summer by the lake and mountains. There is one too many incident involving the Maynards’ new minibus for me - it seems they can’t get into it without some sort of drama - but the storyline of Mélanie becoming ‘a real Chalet girl’ through the combined influence of the Maynards and the Tiernsee before she even joins the school works very well. A perfect summer read.
This is a special book because it is Elinor M. Brent-Dyer’s last look at the Tiernsee. Jo’s family are now established there, and for someone who had not visited its real-life counterpart in years, EBD does a wonderful job of evoking summer by the lake and mountains. There is one too many incident involving the Maynards’ new minibus for me - it seems they can’t get into it without some sort of drama - but the storyline of Mélanie becoming ‘a real Chalet girl’ through the combined influence of the Maynards and the Tiernsee before she even joins the school works very well. A perfect summer read.
July 1, 2025
I have never been a fun of the ‘holiday’ Chalet School books , with the exception of Reunion
By the time this book was written not only were EBD’s story-telling facilities declining but it had been some 40 years since her holiday in the Tirol, and therefore even her description of the countryside and its inhabitants lacked the warmth and genuine descriptive details of the region are missing.
Only read for completeness, as I am aiming to complete an entire read of all the books in the main series (in order!) this year.
By the time this book was written not only were EBD’s story-telling facilities declining but it had been some 40 years since her holiday in the Tirol, and therefore even her description of the countryside and its inhabitants lacked the warmth and genuine descriptive details of the region are missing.
Only read for completeness, as I am aiming to complete an entire read of all the books in the main series (in order!) this year.
May 22, 2017
Melanie lives with her aunt and uncle, who have moved to Switzerland, where it is unbearably hot by the lake (and Melanie is very tall for her age which apparently makes one susceptible to heat??), and so Melanie is whisked off by the Maynards and their billion children in a van for a holiday in Austria. And they tour around for weeks on end, and Melanie is firstly jealous of and then gets on with Ruey. A bit of a dull book with an excess of touristy details.
November 3, 2024
Yet another out-of-school holiday book set in Tirol. I finished this short and sweet book in one sitting. The adventures are a bit muted compared to Joey and Co. in Tirol but entertaining nevertheless.
June 10, 2024
Gentle. Nothing really happens. If you don’t know the Chalet School don’t start here.
October 16, 2019
I don't think I've ever read this one before, and I love the Tirol period more than any other, so it was great. Too many coincidences on old girls they meet up with though!
July 26, 2025
Nothing actually happens in this book. However, it’s set at the Tiernsee, which makes up for a lot.
August 27, 2016
Well, I quite like the cover of this one (despite the fact that Len's hair is the wrong colour and not in a pony-tail) but the contents are an entirely different matter. Melanie doesn't want to leave her beloved St Kate's in England and go to school in Switzerland. When we first meet her, she's in the middle of having a tantrum about this. And then she gets chicken pox so she even has to miss her final term at St Kate's, but she doesn't have a tantrum about this. And then she finds the sweltering heat of Geneva All Too Much (because she's still convalescent) so, Joey having met her once, she ends up going on holiday with the Maynards to the Tiernsee. The tantrum possibilities here are immense - the Triplets are grumpy about having her there, and the whole reason Melanie can't carry on at St Kate's is because 'How can I keep my promise to look after you if you're in one country and I'm in another', something that seems not to apply when Melanie goes off to, erm, another country with, double-erm, total strangers. But no, EBD chooses to show Melanie shaking down OK with the entire Maynards, and instead gives them some adventures (the minibus! the tree!) en route to the Tiernsee.
Once at the Tiernsee, the book is a weird mixture of tourism and teenage strops, as Melanie completely fails to understand Ruey's status in the household (how nonsensical is that? She knows the Richardsons are orphans and she knows that Jack and Joey are their guardians, but somehow fails to see that this makes them members of the family). I quite like Con's blackcurrant wine experience, and the road-rage incident, but most of the rest of the story is just tedious and even being back in the Tiernsee can't rescue it.
All the way through we are waiting for the big reveal (ie, the reason it's called 'A Future CS Girl' - talk about a spoiler) and then this turns out not to be the big reveal after all - I mean, yes Melanie is joining the Chalet School, but when she finds out, she's reasonably OK with it and it's not a particularly big deal. No, the big reveal is that Melanie is related to an old girl! And what's more EBD had given us a little clue about this quite near the beginning! It's practically Agatha Christie. Well, it wasn't really a clue as such - more a cunning ruse to put us off the scent. And there weren't any other clues. And she does it much more unconvincingly in a few books from now. But it all adds to the rubbishness of this particular book. One is left hoping that the nagging Phyll ('who has kept on asking for a story about the people of the country like the first Chalet books') was not too crashingly disappointed with the book that EBD dedicated to her.
This book does provide one of my all-time favourite moments of the entire series, though. The minibus arrives on Saturday. By Tuesday morning Anna has (in addition to all her arduous duties at Freudesheim, significantly increased by all the pre-departure preparations and three dinner guests for Monday night's dinner) netted two hammocks to sling across the aisle for the babies to sleep in. Is there no end to her talents?
Once at the Tiernsee, the book is a weird mixture of tourism and teenage strops, as Melanie completely fails to understand Ruey's status in the household (how nonsensical is that? She knows the Richardsons are orphans and she knows that Jack and Joey are their guardians, but somehow fails to see that this makes them members of the family). I quite like Con's blackcurrant wine experience, and the road-rage incident, but most of the rest of the story is just tedious and even being back in the Tiernsee can't rescue it.
All the way through we are waiting for the big reveal (ie, the reason it's called 'A Future CS Girl' - talk about a spoiler) and then this turns out not to be the big reveal after all - I mean, yes Melanie is joining the Chalet School, but when she finds out, she's reasonably OK with it and it's not a particularly big deal. No, the big reveal is that Melanie is related to an old girl! And what's more EBD had given us a little clue about this quite near the beginning! It's practically Agatha Christie. Well, it wasn't really a clue as such - more a cunning ruse to put us off the scent. And there weren't any other clues. And she does it much more unconvincingly in a few books from now. But it all adds to the rubbishness of this particular book. One is left hoping that the nagging Phyll ('who has kept on asking for a story about the people of the country like the first Chalet books') was not too crashingly disappointed with the book that EBD dedicated to her.
This book does provide one of my all-time favourite moments of the entire series, though. The minibus arrives on Saturday. By Tuesday morning Anna has (in addition to all her arduous duties at Freudesheim, significantly increased by all the pre-departure preparations and three dinner guests for Monday night's dinner) netted two hammocks to sling across the aisle for the babies to sleep in. Is there no end to her talents?
June 7, 2026
One of the handful that doesn’t feature life in the Chalet School at all; instead it’s mostly set in Austria, where the Maynard family regularly take their summer holidays. I quite like the family-oriented books, more so than I did when I was younger.
Mélanie Lucas is the new addition to the series who appears in this book. Her parents work abroad and she lives with her aunt and uncle in the UK. By a sequence of coincidences, she ends up staying with the Maynard family. I quite liked reading about Jo and Jack’s ‘singleton’ sons, Steve, Mike and Charles, who don’t appear in the school-based stories. They’re perhaps a bit caricatured but likeable enough, and with quite distinct characters.
There are several expeditions made, with a great deal of overtly educational content about history, geography and myths pertaining to the places. This happens in the school-based stories too, but I wasn’t expecting it in this one. There was rather too much detail about the food taken on picnics, in an almost Blyton style, and who exactly was going to do which job in preparation. This Armada version isn't cut down much, if at all, from the original, but I thought it could have done with losing just a little of the extraneous detail.
Still, it made a good story. Certainly worth reading for those, like me, reading through or re-visiting the entire series.
Latest longer review: https://suesbookreviews.blogspot.com/...
Mélanie Lucas is the new addition to the series who appears in this book. Her parents work abroad and she lives with her aunt and uncle in the UK. By a sequence of coincidences, she ends up staying with the Maynard family. I quite liked reading about Jo and Jack’s ‘singleton’ sons, Steve, Mike and Charles, who don’t appear in the school-based stories. They’re perhaps a bit caricatured but likeable enough, and with quite distinct characters.
There are several expeditions made, with a great deal of overtly educational content about history, geography and myths pertaining to the places. This happens in the school-based stories too, but I wasn’t expecting it in this one. There was rather too much detail about the food taken on picnics, in an almost Blyton style, and who exactly was going to do which job in preparation. This Armada version isn't cut down much, if at all, from the original, but I thought it could have done with losing just a little of the extraneous detail.
Still, it made a good story. Certainly worth reading for those, like me, reading through or re-visiting the entire series.
Latest longer review: https://suesbookreviews.blogspot.com/...
January 24, 2026
When Melanie's father takes a job in Brazil, her parents leave her in England with her aunt and uncle. She is happy at her day school. But then her uncle's job takes him to Switzerland, and Melanie must move and change schools — very unwillingly. But a meeting with her favorite author leads to an invitation to spend the summer with the Maynard family in Austria. At first she is happy there, but jealousy rears its head when the three Richardsons arrive. An enjoyable holiday story full of adventures, during which not only Melanie matures, becoming the kind of pupil the Chalet School likes.
April 30, 2010
Melanie's bout of chickenpox has resulted in her leaving England sooner than planned. Her uncle has gotten a job overseas, and he's bring her auntie and her along with him. She's quite unhappy about leaving her school, but she has no other choice.
Circumstances change, and she ends up spending her holidays with the Manyard family! Like Joey in Tirol, this book also focuses on the Manyard family, spending their summer holidays.
Circumstances change, and she ends up spending her holidays with the Manyard family! Like Joey in Tirol, this book also focuses on the Manyard family, spending their summer holidays.
January 19, 2011
A relatively lame entry in the Chalet School list. Recovering from chicken-pox, Melanie makes friends with Joey Maynard and her family, and is persuaded to enroll in the prestigious school, now located in the Swiss alps. She never actually gets to the school which is a serious weakness in a Chalet School book!
December 27, 2014
A holiday chalet book - featuring the entire Maynard family on a vacation in the Tirol. Not strictly a chalet school book but starring the favourites, Joey and her family. A great chance to get to know the boys better and to see how they interact as a family.
April 19, 2022
Pretty much just a sequel to Joey & Co in Tirol
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews