What do you think?
Rate this book
The Chalet School #13
THE NEW CHALET SCHOOL
Brent-Dyer's first book, Gerry Goes to School, was published in 1922 and became the first of the La Rochelle series. She was inspired to start the Chalet School series after holidaying in the Austrian Tyrol at Pertisau-am-Achensee. The first book in the series, The School at the Chalet, was published in 1923. Although she was raised as an Anglican, she converted to Roman Catholicism in 1930. In 1933, Brent-Dyer and her mother moved to Hereford, where Brent-Dyer was employed as a governess in Peterchurch. In 1938, she opened her own school, the Margaret Roper School, which closed in 1948. She then dedicated all of her time to writing. Brent-Dyer's mother died in 1957. In 1964, her long-time friend Phyllis Matthewman persuaded her leave the unmanageably large Victorian villa at which she had previously run her school in order to live with Phyllis and her literary agent husband, Sydney. After first living together as tenants in half of a house called Albury Edge, at Redhill, Surrey, they bought a house together, Gryphons, also at Redhill, in 1965. Phyllis's aunt, who knew the Dyer family, had introduced them to one another in childhood. Sydney Matthewman served as Brent-Dyer's agent. Brent-Dyer died at Redhill in 1969 and her final book was published posthumously the same year.
Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1938
8 people are currently reading
159 people want to read
About the author
Elinor M. Brent-Dyer
171 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 - 21 of 21 reviews
March 18, 2016
There's a moment in this book, relatively early on, where Joey is advised to rub butter on a bruise and it is a moment which fascinates me to this day. Would the butter have to be salted or unsalted? How much of the butter would suffice? Is this really a thing or is it Elinor M. Brent-Dyer having one of her hallucinations? A part of me wants to google whether this is true medical science, and yet an equal part of me doesn't want to find out.
And so we come to The New Chalet School, a book that is legendary to me for the quality of its small details; a book so full and rich of minutiae that it's almost not a children's book at all, but rather something that feels almost like reportage. It's too real, at this point, this series to me, it is a book that is so thoroughly real that reading this, and the resolution of one of the key sub plots, is almost painful. It's perhaps one of the few moments in the series where Brent-Dyer delivers a lesson on morality and behaviour that is hard; truly hard, to read, and coming after a sequence defined by happenstance and pratfalls, feels even harder. It's horrible, really how the subplot is resolved, and I think it's one of the few moments where Brent-Dyer becomes a hard, and almost cruel author.
(A sidebar: Happenstance and Pratfalls will be my new band name)
But; coupled with that, as ever, is a novel full of glory, and it's so hard to digest, these wild shifts of tone and style. Brent-Dyer handles the girl's slow realisation that Mademoiselle is not going to get well with a warm, light and kind hand and again, in contrast, I return to that subplot and the way it's wrapped up and the hard, hard tones in which it is delivered. A novel of contrasts; the New Chalet School, and yet one I love. I do, despite it all, I do. I don't think I can't.
A hard, complicated book to resolve, and I don't think these are words that I easily associate with the Chalet School. But - here, I do, and this book is fascinating to me and rather important because of that. But. Yes. A review of stutters this, and of contrasts, and of an author who is so very good and somewhat terrifying, somehow, with the skill she has.
And so we come to The New Chalet School, a book that is legendary to me for the quality of its small details; a book so full and rich of minutiae that it's almost not a children's book at all, but rather something that feels almost like reportage. It's too real, at this point, this series to me, it is a book that is so thoroughly real that reading this, and the resolution of one of the key sub plots, is almost painful. It's perhaps one of the few moments in the series where Brent-Dyer delivers a lesson on morality and behaviour that is hard; truly hard, to read, and coming after a sequence defined by happenstance and pratfalls, feels even harder. It's horrible, really how the subplot is resolved, and I think it's one of the few moments where Brent-Dyer becomes a hard, and almost cruel author.
(A sidebar: Happenstance and Pratfalls will be my new band name)
But; coupled with that, as ever, is a novel full of glory, and it's so hard to digest, these wild shifts of tone and style. Brent-Dyer handles the girl's slow realisation that Mademoiselle is not going to get well with a warm, light and kind hand and again, in contrast, I return to that subplot and the way it's wrapped up and the hard, hard tones in which it is delivered. A novel of contrasts; the New Chalet School, and yet one I love. I do, despite it all, I do. I don't think I can't.
A hard, complicated book to resolve, and I don't think these are words that I easily associate with the Chalet School. But - here, I do, and this book is fascinating to me and rather important because of that. But. Yes. A review of stutters this, and of contrasts, and of an author who is so very good and somewhat terrifying, somehow, with the skill she has.
December 17, 2021
Aside from another highly entertaining Armada cover and the most astonishing euphemism for death that I’ve yet encountered, this is another attempt by the publishers to refashion a longer series title (in this case, ‘A United Chalet School’) into a disjointed and completely pointless novella. I even had to reread several sections in order to make sense of the plot, which is highly unacceptable in a book that contains 128 pages.
Oh, and that euphemism (hence the extra star): ‘He gave her hand a quick clasp, as he was then beyond speaking, and turning a little, slipped away to the country where the wife he had adored was waiting for him.’
No spoilers.
Oh, and that euphemism (hence the extra star): ‘He gave her hand a quick clasp, as he was then beyond speaking, and turning a little, slipped away to the country where the wife he had adored was waiting for him.’
No spoilers.
August 8, 2023
I normally wouldn't give anything less that 4 stars for a Chalet School book since I can't use the same criteria I use for other books on these. Chalet School are special books full of nostalgia. This book is not bad but a bit too short and abrupt. Pretty sure it is actually the first part of the original book which is why it feels that way. Goes to show that you should never split books into two. I am going to read part 2 of this book (A United Chalet School) now.
April 14, 2019
There are a lot of lovely, and moving, moments in this book. A lot of the plot takes place outside the school and the whole book has quite a lot of detail, which is a pleasure to read. The subplots are enjoyable - if a little overblown in the case of the Balbinis. The gradual revelation (to the Seniors, at least) of the state of Mademoiselle's health was well done, and Cornelia's response was very touching. I hope that it will be followed up in later books.
Jo is still (unsurprisingly) failing at cutting ties to the school and still veering madly between being One Of The Girls and being Practically Staff. The merging of the Chalet School and St Scholastika's into one is (also unsurprisingly) fairly straightforward - though how much space do Madge and Jem need that they are going to use the St Scholastika's building as their summer home? With the best will in the world, that is a ridiculous amount of space - dormitories, bedrooms for staff, classrooms and common rooms and goodness knows what else. (Mind you, they seem to adopt or house about twenty orphans or otherwise disadvantaged children at any one time, so....)
Thoroughly enjoyed this. It felt a bit different to the previous books, somehow.
Jo is still (unsurprisingly) failing at cutting ties to the school and still veering madly between being One Of The Girls and being Practically Staff. The merging of the Chalet School and St Scholastika's into one is (also unsurprisingly) fairly straightforward - though how much space do Madge and Jem need that they are going to use the St Scholastika's building as their summer home? With the best will in the world, that is a ridiculous amount of space - dormitories, bedrooms for staff, classrooms and common rooms and goodness knows what else. (Mind you, they seem to adopt or house about twenty orphans or otherwise disadvantaged children at any one time, so....)
Thoroughly enjoyed this. It felt a bit different to the previous books, somehow.
March 14, 2022
Saint Scholastika's is no more: the head teacher closes it down over the holidays and the girls move across the lake to join the Chalet School. Then the Scholastika assimilation into the Chalet becomes complete when Jem and Madge buy the school building and move into it, like a house. Even with all their children, wards and assorted hangers-on, they do not need that much room, surely.
Introducing the Saints to the Chalet's many, many rules takes up a lot of the book, and the rest deals with staff gossip and the one-sided feud conducted by some small children on the school and all who sail in her.
The feud gives us these immortal lines, as Maria Balbini prepares to meet Jem after he punishes her brother for shooting pellets at him with a catapult: "He shall pay - they shall all pay!" she hissed. "I go now to meet him and warn him, for never shall they say that a Balbini fell on them unawares. Go you, Manuel, and bid the Band meet us during the siesta hour near the syringas. There we will plan for revenge!"
Maria is nine.
My edition is the Armada split version, with the second half as a second book, and I think it works, wrapping up the Balbini storyline in genuinely devastating fashion.
Introducing the Saints to the Chalet's many, many rules takes up a lot of the book, and the rest deals with staff gossip and the one-sided feud conducted by some small children on the school and all who sail in her.
The feud gives us these immortal lines, as Maria Balbini prepares to meet Jem after he punishes her brother for shooting pellets at him with a catapult: "He shall pay - they shall all pay!" she hissed. "I go now to meet him and warn him, for never shall they say that a Balbini fell on them unawares. Go you, Manuel, and bid the Band meet us during the siesta hour near the syringas. There we will plan for revenge!"
Maria is nine.
My edition is the Armada split version, with the second half as a second book, and I think it works, wrapping up the Balbini storyline in genuinely devastating fashion.
August 8, 2016
EBD is never at her finest than when she writes of tragedy, real tragedy, and illness and grief - and this book has its fair share. It helps that this is one where the grown up Joey is still decidedly NOT without her flaws; and the GGB version seems to contain a lot more of the subtleties from the earlier books, including some warm moments with the Russells.
March 21, 2025
It’s all change at the Chalet School this term - with Mademoiselle still ill, Miss Annersley has to step up as Head, while the Chalet takes in the girls of St Scholastica’s after their school closes? Will the two groups become one? And who are the Mystic M, who seem determined to cause chaos at the school?
EBD starts this book off with three new beginnings - Miss Annersley as Head, Jo and Madge moving down to the lake for the summer, and the Saints realising they are about to become Chaletians. But the first part of the book - and the substance of the New Chalet paperback version - takes a detour into the school’s encounter with the Balbini twins. EBD might show some ways of dealing with the twins that even in the 1930s were on the high-handed side, but she also has her characters express a lot of sympathy with two children left to run wild while their father thinks only of his dying wife. After the drama of their exploits, the second half of the book is a bit of an anti-climax in its return to school pranks and trips gone wrong. But maybe it’s just good to enjoy one last idyllic summer in EBD’s Tiernsee before the abrupt end of Exile.
EBD starts this book off with three new beginnings - Miss Annersley as Head, Jo and Madge moving down to the lake for the summer, and the Saints realising they are about to become Chaletians. But the first part of the book - and the substance of the New Chalet paperback version - takes a detour into the school’s encounter with the Balbini twins. EBD might show some ways of dealing with the twins that even in the 1930s were on the high-handed side, but she also has her characters express a lot of sympathy with two children left to run wild while their father thinks only of his dying wife. After the drama of their exploits, the second half of the book is a bit of an anti-climax in its return to school pranks and trips gone wrong. But maybe it’s just good to enjoy one last idyllic summer in EBD’s Tiernsee before the abrupt end of Exile.
February 25, 2019
3.5/5
A bit funny a bit dramatic but a bit boring all thw same lol.
Maria balbini was quite over the top. The fact that scholastika and chalet school joined and they used the pranking kids to bring an already together school just wasnt that interesting overall really. Would have been a bit more interesting if there was a feud within girls lol. It was honestly too short a book overall.
A bit funny a bit dramatic but a bit boring all thw same lol.
Maria balbini was quite over the top. The fact that scholastika and chalet school joined and they used the pranking kids to bring an already together school just wasnt that interesting overall really. Would have been a bit more interesting if there was a feud within girls lol. It was honestly too short a book overall.
December 29, 2018
Chalet School in Guernsey xxx
March 22, 2025
Some exciting moments
March 20, 2008
Of course, we all knew that you can't have two schools near the Austrian lake for long, despite their amicable relationship - in this book, the headmistress of St Scholastika's retires, and the Saints merge with the Chalet School. Everything is quite overcrowded, so a new chalet is to be constructed, and a nearby chalet to be purchased. There is to be a new house system, with juniors, middles and seniors in every house.
Madge and Jem conveniently decide to buy St Scholastika's as a summer house (this is a school that's had over 40 students living in it - how much room do they need?), and Jo and Madge have fun decorating and live there during the summer. This enables Jo to be far too involved in the prefect's business for my liking - honestly, if you were trying to discipline a middle, would you want the old head girl sticking her oar in?
A pair of Italian twins play various pranks on the school, concluding with them kidnapping Madge's baby. Which I just thought was insane - I mean, everyone's very pissed off about it, and Madge becomes ill with worry (as women always seem to do in these books), but then they don't really get in trouble because their mother (who's in the Sanatorium) dies and they don't get to say goodbye to her. Perhaps I'm awfully cruel, but if I think they needed more punishment than that - if they're kidnapping babies prior to their mother dying, what are they going to be doing afterwards?
There's also the usual dramatic episode (this time, a flood while the girls are out on a trip in a coach), and Jo's published book arrives (and someone injures themselves running into a burning building trying to save the book - I'm finding the Jo Worship a bit much.)
Madge and Jem conveniently decide to buy St Scholastika's as a summer house (this is a school that's had over 40 students living in it - how much room do they need?), and Jo and Madge have fun decorating and live there during the summer. This enables Jo to be far too involved in the prefect's business for my liking - honestly, if you were trying to discipline a middle, would you want the old head girl sticking her oar in?
A pair of Italian twins play various pranks on the school, concluding with them kidnapping Madge's baby. Which I just thought was insane - I mean, everyone's very pissed off about it, and Madge becomes ill with worry (as women always seem to do in these books), but then they don't really get in trouble because their mother (who's in the Sanatorium) dies and they don't get to say goodbye to her. Perhaps I'm awfully cruel, but if I think they needed more punishment than that - if they're kidnapping babies prior to their mother dying, what are they going to be doing afterwards?
There's also the usual dramatic episode (this time, a flood while the girls are out on a trip in a coach), and Jo's published book arrives (and someone injures themselves running into a burning building trying to save the book - I'm finding the Jo Worship a bit much.)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 24, 2015
Little wonder that the blurb for this book promises much mystery and adventure - even taking into account the amount of hijinks the Chalet girls experience on a regular basis, even this term would leave anybody breathless. Everything from merging with St Scholastika's, through to the pranks by The Mystic M (a mini-secret society set up by Maria and Mario Balbini, little Italian royal folk hellbent on taking revenge on Madge and Jo), and then a trip to Salzburg that's overcome by floods... it's a hectic term, to say the least.
It's interesting to get to read the book as intended, in its entirety - when the paperback was published, New was split into two, with the latter half of the book issued under the name 'The United Chalet School'... a much rarer edition and difficult to get hold of. Here, you see the entire term as Brent-Dyer intended it, and it's much more satisfying to see the girls from St Scholastika's settling into their new school, and see how the new Chalet School does intend become the united Chalet School.
My affection for this period of the Chalet School series - when the school is located in Austria - probably colours my bias towards this particular novel. It's certainly not one of the best or most memorable of the Tiernsee books, but because the characters in it are the ones I love most, when they're at their most recognisable and loved... it's a treat to get to follow along on their adventures with them, and what a nice lot Brent-Dyer presents us with this time!
It's interesting to get to read the book as intended, in its entirety - when the paperback was published, New was split into two, with the latter half of the book issued under the name 'The United Chalet School'... a much rarer edition and difficult to get hold of. Here, you see the entire term as Brent-Dyer intended it, and it's much more satisfying to see the girls from St Scholastika's settling into their new school, and see how the new Chalet School does intend become the united Chalet School.
My affection for this period of the Chalet School series - when the school is located in Austria - probably colours my bias towards this particular novel. It's certainly not one of the best or most memorable of the Tiernsee books, but because the characters in it are the ones I love most, when they're at their most recognisable and loved... it's a treat to get to follow along on their adventures with them, and what a nice lot Brent-Dyer presents us with this time!
April 12, 2024
Uncle.
I give.
I get it now.
We will never, ever be free of "Joey". She is the Jo March/LM Alcott figure who represents Brent-Dyer herself in her desire to be an author, though from what I find online BD never actually taught in the Alps. She didn't have to, it's fiction. Apparently she went to Switzerland once on vacation and that was enough. Which may explain why she never gives much page time to the actual Swiss people other than servants and such, and we don't see any local festivals or anything.
"The Robin" is now about 12 years old and yet is still spoken of and treated like "the baby." Not just the baby of her adoptive family, but an actual incapable small child. OK, she's delicate and small for her age. OK, they thought she could somehow inherit TB from her mother. But goodness, by now she's the age of the Middles! And yet she still lives in Madge/Meg March's nursery with the actual babies.
In this instalment of the series it's the adults who suffer migraines, fainting spells, invalidism and even death. No wonder Brent-Dyer set this series in Switzerland; she do love her affecting second-hand talk about death and mortality, though your actual death scene is never shown. The Robin's father's death by climbing accident is glossed over as if it were discussed in another volume somewhere, but I don't remember that so she just wanted to have "the Robin" join Madge's family with little fuss.
And because it's a Chalet School story, she throws in flood and fire to round things off.
I give.
I get it now.
We will never, ever be free of "Joey". She is the Jo March/LM Alcott figure who represents Brent-Dyer herself in her desire to be an author, though from what I find online BD never actually taught in the Alps. She didn't have to, it's fiction. Apparently she went to Switzerland once on vacation and that was enough. Which may explain why she never gives much page time to the actual Swiss people other than servants and such, and we don't see any local festivals or anything.
"The Robin" is now about 12 years old and yet is still spoken of and treated like "the baby." Not just the baby of her adoptive family, but an actual incapable small child. OK, she's delicate and small for her age. OK, they thought she could somehow inherit TB from her mother. But goodness, by now she's the age of the Middles! And yet she still lives in Madge/Meg March's nursery with the actual babies.
In this instalment of the series it's the adults who suffer migraines, fainting spells, invalidism and even death. No wonder Brent-Dyer set this series in Switzerland; she do love her affecting second-hand talk about death and mortality, though your actual death scene is never shown. The Robin's father's death by climbing accident is glossed over as if it were discussed in another volume somewhere, but I don't remember that so she just wanted to have "the Robin" join Madge's family with little fuss.
And because it's a Chalet School story, she throws in flood and fire to round things off.
June 21, 2015
A cunning ruse by Armada - by only publishing the (abridged) first half of the original New, they created something unique: a Chalet School book with a plot. A fairly preposterous plot, in which the Mystic M (oh yes) shoot Madge and kidnap Sybil, but, still, a plot.
Sadly there's so much plot that we don't get all the usual EBD detail of life at the Chalet - nor, crucially, do her characters dance off the page in the way they do in her other books. This is the essential problem with EBD - when she lets her characters do their own thing, she often creates something quite brilliant, but generally at the expense of a coherent narrative thread. And then when she does really concentrate on telling a proper story, she has to restrain her characters and the whole effect isn't nearly as good.
There's a little bit of ordinary settling-in near the start, as the Saints get accustomed to their new home (how delighted their parents must have been at the prospect of buying brand new brown uniforms and turning the old blue ones into rag rugs). But the focus is very much on the Mystic M, who swing into action on the very first day of term.
Perhaps because of this, New has never been one of my favourites - my copy is in reasonably good nick for a 35 year old paperback, with not a single page falling out. I also thought the ending was a bit odd, but it was several years before I found out why ...
Sadly there's so much plot that we don't get all the usual EBD detail of life at the Chalet - nor, crucially, do her characters dance off the page in the way they do in her other books. This is the essential problem with EBD - when she lets her characters do their own thing, she often creates something quite brilliant, but generally at the expense of a coherent narrative thread. And then when she does really concentrate on telling a proper story, she has to restrain her characters and the whole effect isn't nearly as good.
There's a little bit of ordinary settling-in near the start, as the Saints get accustomed to their new home (how delighted their parents must have been at the prospect of buying brand new brown uniforms and turning the old blue ones into rag rugs). But the focus is very much on the Mystic M, who swing into action on the very first day of term.
Perhaps because of this, New has never been one of my favourites - my copy is in reasonably good nick for a 35 year old paperback, with not a single page falling out. I also thought the ending was a bit odd, but it was several years before I found out why ...
June 30, 2021
Slightly confusingly, the Armada version of this is the first half of the original 'New Chalet School', published in paperback in the 1970s, with the second half being re-named 'The United Chalet School'. I was delighted to be able to acquire a full edition in hardback since the last time I read it.
It begins with the news that St Scholastika's has been sold, as their head has retired, and the girls will be joining the Chalet School. A new block will be built, but in the meantime the school will be rather crowded. We also learn that Mademoiselle LePattre will not be returning to teaching.
The Russells and their extended family have bought the old St Scholastika's building and will be using it as a summer home. And a new guesthouse has opened.. with some small Italian children who take a dislike to the Chalet School and start a feud which gets progressively nastier, and ends in tragedy for these children.
Fast-paced and quite exciting. It's many years since I last read it and I'd forgotten pretty much everything in the book.
Latest full review: https://suesbookreviews.blogspot.com/...
It begins with the news that St Scholastika's has been sold, as their head has retired, and the girls will be joining the Chalet School. A new block will be built, but in the meantime the school will be rather crowded. We also learn that Mademoiselle LePattre will not be returning to teaching.
The Russells and their extended family have bought the old St Scholastika's building and will be using it as a summer home. And a new guesthouse has opened.. with some small Italian children who take a dislike to the Chalet School and start a feud which gets progressively nastier, and ends in tragedy for these children.
Fast-paced and quite exciting. It's many years since I last read it and I'd forgotten pretty much everything in the book.
Latest full review: https://suesbookreviews.blogspot.com/...
February 17, 2010
A really thin book, so quick to finish. It was originally one book, but it got split into two (The New Chalet School and A United Chalet School).
The friendly rival school of St Scholastika's has been closed down, and quite a few of their girls have joined the Chalet School. It's tough for them in the beginning, but they eventually become fast friends.
The friendly rival school of St Scholastika's has been closed down, and quite a few of their girls have joined the Chalet School. It's tough for them in the beginning, but they eventually become fast friends.
October 3, 2020
The New Chalet School is book 15 of a reread (I started at Exile don’t @ at me, then went back to School at the Chalet and continued forward from there), so book 14 in the series. First reread of the Tyrol book since I went to Pertisau. I’ve no idea why Armarda decide to split this into two books it’s quite mad, and it makes both books unsatisfying. Still there’s lots to like including the joining of the Chalet and Saints schools, and getting to know the newer faces. Love the way EBD deals with Mademoiselle’s health. All in all a reasonable end to the Tyrol set, with Exile to follow.
March 27, 2016
A new-to-me Chalet school book and one that fills in some of the holes. As ever it's a product of its time so warning for terrible race-related epithets in one part, but still a satisfying school story for the major plot-line, albeit one with all the melodrama and coincidence one expects from a Chalet School novel (especially the earlier ones).
July 14, 2019
Review later; unabridged hardback read. First GR read Feb 2014, second March 2016.
October 1, 2014
Another lovely story. Not so much focus on the school and its pupils this time. Great emphasis on illness -such was the time though I guess. Love the line "I'd rather teach hottentots!"
April 18, 2022
DRAMA! And we haven't even hit WW2 yet
(Re-read) Forgot how heavy handed this is
(Re-read) Forgot how heavy handed this is
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews