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Bell Family #1
Family Shoes
The children of Reverend Bell - Paul, Jane, Angus, and Ginny - find their plans for a summer holiday threatened as they search for ways to earn money to help their parents.
255 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1954
About the author
Noel Streatfeild
176 books632 followersMary Noel Streatfeild, known as Noel Streatfeild, was an author best known and loved for her children's books, including Ballet Shoes and Circus Shoes. She also wrote romances under the pseudonym
Susan Scarlett
.
She was born on Christmas Eve, 1895, the daughter of William Champion Streatfeild and Janet Venn and the second of six children to be born to the couple. Sister Ruth was the oldest, after Noel came Barbara, William ('Bill'), Joyce (who died of TB prior to her second birthday) and Richenda. Ruth and Noel attended Hastings and St. Leonard's Ladies' College in 1910. As an adult, she began theater work, and spent approximately 10 years in the theater.
During the Great War, in 1915 Noel worked first as a volunteer in a soldier's hospital kitchen near Eastbourne Vicarage and later produced two plays with her sister Ruth. When things took a turn for the worse on the Front in 1916 she moved to London and obtained a job making munitions in Woolwich Arsenal. At the end of the war in January 1919, Noel enrolled at the Academy of Dramatic Art (later Royal Academy) in London.
In 1930, she began writing her first adult novel, The Whicharts, published in 1931. In June 1932, she was elected to membership of PEN. Early in 1936, Mabel Carey, children's editor of J. M. Dent and Sons, asks Noel to write a children's story about the theatre, which led to Noel completing Ballet Shoes in mid-1936. In 28 September 1936, when Ballet Shoes was published, it became an immediate best seller.
According to Angela Bull, Ballet Shoes was a reworked version of The Whicharts. Elder sister Ruth Gervis illustrated the book, which was published on the 28th September, 1936. At the time, the plot and general 'attitude' of the book was highly original, and destined to provide an outline for countless other ballet books down the years until this day. The first known book to be set at a stage school, the first ballet story to be set in London, the first to feature upper middle class society, the first to show the limits of amateurism and possibly the first to show children as self-reliant, able to survive without running to grownups when things went wrong.
In 1937, Noel traveled with Bertram Mills Circus to research The Circus is Coming (also known as Circus Shoes). She won the Carnegie gold medal in February 1939 for this book. In 1940, World War II began, and Noel began war-related work from 1940-1945. During this time, she wrote four adult novels, five children's books, nine romances, and innumerable articles and short stories. On May 10th, 1941, her flat was destroyed by a bomb. Shortly after WWII is over, in 1947, Noel traveled to America to research film studios for her book The Painted Garden. In 1949, she began delivering lectures on children's books. Between 1949 and 1953, her plays, The Bell Family radio serials played on the Children's Hour and were frequently voted top play of the year.
Early in 1960s, she decided to stop writing adult novels, but did write some autobiographical novels, such as A Vicarage Family in 1963. She also had written 12 romance novels under the pen name "Susan Scarlett." Her children's books number at least 58 titles. From July to December 1979, she suffered a series of small strokes and moved into a nursing home. In 1983, she received the honor Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). On 11 September 1986, she passed away in a nursing home.
She was born on Christmas Eve, 1895, the daughter of William Champion Streatfeild and Janet Venn and the second of six children to be born to the couple. Sister Ruth was the oldest, after Noel came Barbara, William ('Bill'), Joyce (who died of TB prior to her second birthday) and Richenda. Ruth and Noel attended Hastings and St. Leonard's Ladies' College in 1910. As an adult, she began theater work, and spent approximately 10 years in the theater.
During the Great War, in 1915 Noel worked first as a volunteer in a soldier's hospital kitchen near Eastbourne Vicarage and later produced two plays with her sister Ruth. When things took a turn for the worse on the Front in 1916 she moved to London and obtained a job making munitions in Woolwich Arsenal. At the end of the war in January 1919, Noel enrolled at the Academy of Dramatic Art (later Royal Academy) in London.
In 1930, she began writing her first adult novel, The Whicharts, published in 1931. In June 1932, she was elected to membership of PEN. Early in 1936, Mabel Carey, children's editor of J. M. Dent and Sons, asks Noel to write a children's story about the theatre, which led to Noel completing Ballet Shoes in mid-1936. In 28 September 1936, when Ballet Shoes was published, it became an immediate best seller.
According to Angela Bull, Ballet Shoes was a reworked version of The Whicharts. Elder sister Ruth Gervis illustrated the book, which was published on the 28th September, 1936. At the time, the plot and general 'attitude' of the book was highly original, and destined to provide an outline for countless other ballet books down the years until this day. The first known book to be set at a stage school, the first ballet story to be set in London, the first to feature upper middle class society, the first to show the limits of amateurism and possibly the first to show children as self-reliant, able to survive without running to grownups when things went wrong.
In 1937, Noel traveled with Bertram Mills Circus to research The Circus is Coming (also known as Circus Shoes). She won the Carnegie gold medal in February 1939 for this book. In 1940, World War II began, and Noel began war-related work from 1940-1945. During this time, she wrote four adult novels, five children's books, nine romances, and innumerable articles and short stories. On May 10th, 1941, her flat was destroyed by a bomb. Shortly after WWII is over, in 1947, Noel traveled to America to research film studios for her book The Painted Garden. In 1949, she began delivering lectures on children's books. Between 1949 and 1953, her plays, The Bell Family radio serials played on the Children's Hour and were frequently voted top play of the year.
Early in 1960s, she decided to stop writing adult novels, but did write some autobiographical novels, such as A Vicarage Family in 1963. She also had written 12 romance novels under the pen name "Susan Scarlett." Her children's books number at least 58 titles. From July to December 1979, she suffered a series of small strokes and moved into a nursing home. In 1983, she received the honor Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). On 11 September 1986, she passed away in a nursing home.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
September 1, 2013
This has one of the most Streatfeild openings ever written:
I just love this family a lot.
I don't own a copy of New Shoes. I have just rectified that.
The Thames is a very twisting sort of river. It is as if it had to force its way into London, and had become bent in the process. First there is a big bend to the right, then a little one to the left, then a great bulge to the right, followed immediately by a smaller bulge to the left. In that smaller bulge to the left is the part of southeast London in which the Bells lived.And the entire book is that Streatfeild-y, too. It's a little messy - there are tons of characters - but it's warm and lively and funny. Ginny is a scream, and Jane is a believable talented person, and Paul is a great mixture of young and older than his age, and even Angus isn't overdone. Then there's Cathy, who is one of Streatfeild's warmest and most present mothers, and Alex, who's written with just the right touch, and Mrs. Gage - and Grandmother and Grandfather - and Alex's awful brother and his equally awful wife Rose - and of course Veronica, who Mumsie says looks sweetly pretty in blue.
I just love this family a lot.
I don't own a copy of New Shoes. I have just rectified that.
June 6, 2023
This was such a charming book to read aloud to my kids!
Together, the Bell family has many little adventures that all tie together around the theme of trying to get better dancing lessons for Jane. This was originally a radio serial for BBC that ran for six years, and then Streatfeild put some of their adventures into a book too. Streatfeild grew up in a big, fairly poor family with a vicar for a father too, and I expect that's what gives this book its feel of grounded authenticity.
Good, clean, wholesome, uplifting, and funny stuff.
Together, the Bell family has many little adventures that all tie together around the theme of trying to get better dancing lessons for Jane. This was originally a radio serial for BBC that ran for six years, and then Streatfeild put some of their adventures into a book too. Streatfeild grew up in a big, fairly poor family with a vicar for a father too, and I expect that's what gives this book its feel of grounded authenticity.
Good, clean, wholesome, uplifting, and funny stuff.
January 3, 2017
Cute story. Good for younger readers.
December 26, 2022
Family Shoes is part of a series by the British author, Noel Streatfeild. The books take place in the UK from the 1930s to the 1960s, focusing on children who forge careers for themselves or strive to help their families. Family Shoes is about the Bell family, Paul, Angus, Jane and Ginny, children of the Reverend Alex Bell and his wife Cathy.
Alex is, as his children say, a "very clergyman sort of clergyman," not preachy, but self sacrificing and willing to go where ever the Bishop sends him, even though it means the family has to live in a poor part of London with no garden. The Bells are, if not really poor, hard up. Clothes are always a struggle. Streatfeild's characters always need clothes, and pages expound on the kind of fabric and color for the essential dress that will save the day in almost every book.
A galling fact added to the mix is Alex's family. His father is a prosperous woolen mill owner in Bradford, and his brother has gone into the business in London, equally prosperous, and has even been knighted for his work. Both Alex's father and brother are faintly contemptuous of his choice of profession. When Alex told his father he planned to go into the church, his father announced that Alex would get none of his money.
Money would help the Bells a lot. Jane wants more than anything else to be a ballet dancer, but her school offers no ballet training. The family has no money to send her to the Royal Ballet school. Paul wants to become a doctor like his other grandfather and uncle. But his grandfather is leaning on him to leave school and join the wool business.
Ginny is just difficult. Her efforts to help out end in disaster. Angus is only 8. He goes to a choir school and hates it.
Family Shoes, is, like the other shoe books, a snapshot of a close British family, full of jokes, who bicker but ultimately prevail over their difficulties. I love these books.
Alex is, as his children say, a "very clergyman sort of clergyman," not preachy, but self sacrificing and willing to go where ever the Bishop sends him, even though it means the family has to live in a poor part of London with no garden. The Bells are, if not really poor, hard up. Clothes are always a struggle. Streatfeild's characters always need clothes, and pages expound on the kind of fabric and color for the essential dress that will save the day in almost every book.
A galling fact added to the mix is Alex's family. His father is a prosperous woolen mill owner in Bradford, and his brother has gone into the business in London, equally prosperous, and has even been knighted for his work. Both Alex's father and brother are faintly contemptuous of his choice of profession. When Alex told his father he planned to go into the church, his father announced that Alex would get none of his money.
Money would help the Bells a lot. Jane wants more than anything else to be a ballet dancer, but her school offers no ballet training. The family has no money to send her to the Royal Ballet school. Paul wants to become a doctor like his other grandfather and uncle. But his grandfather is leaning on him to leave school and join the wool business.
Ginny is just difficult. Her efforts to help out end in disaster. Angus is only 8. He goes to a choir school and hates it.
Family Shoes, is, like the other shoe books, a snapshot of a close British family, full of jokes, who bicker but ultimately prevail over their difficulties. I love these books.
March 8, 2025
Ten stars for the Bell family! Cozy, warm, jolly, rollicking, and yet tears pricked my eyes more than once. So many times a sentence would fling me straight into the way I remembered feeling when I was Ginnie's age, or Jane's... I love the family and I adore the stick-to-it attitudes.
November 25, 2024
This was my first “shoes” book and it did not disappoint! A lovely read, warm and feeling, full of family and hope. I look forward to rereading this again one day.
February 25, 2008
I liked this one quite a bit...not as much as "Ballet Shoes", but quite alot. :) Though, I have to say, I didn't care for Ginnie, the 2nd girl. I normally like the high-spirited children, who do get into trouble. They seem more realistic to me. But Ginnie went beyond. She was a perfect brat, in my opinion. Not at all sorry when she did wrong, and even thinking she was in the right, and she was being treated unfairly. Made me want to give her a good long shake. lol. But Jane I did love. :)
December 29, 2016
I have always loved Noel Streatfeild's books and as a child I got my library to ILL them for me or hunted through second hand book stores to find all of them. She tells the perfect "girls stories". I was always able to find one character in each book that was my favorite. They definitely stand up to re-reads.
May 12, 2008
Typical of Streatfeild, the roles of good and evil are clearly defined. The minister's family featured here are strapped for cash and the children are impossibly angelic. Nonetheless, it was an absorbing read.
December 10, 2008
Unfortunately, nowhere near as charming as her more well known books. One of the characters drove me up a wall–and I think I was supposed to be sympathetic to her. [Feb. 2010]
Read
August 23, 2013That friend of mine gave this to me for my birthday, probably my 13th.
August 28, 2020
read this before but every book in this series is a delight.
December 29, 2020
This is one of the very rare Streatfeild books I don't like. Everyone was too busy being a character, except Ginnie who was just annoying.
Read
November 20, 2021Not my favorite by the author but I'm glad I got a chance to read it.
May 30, 2022
Not all that interesting. Very wholesome and 1950s, with a few mentions of beating kids with a slipper (though it never actually happens) and a lot of feeding chocolate to dogs.
Read
January 19, 2024Everything by Noel Streatfeild is so cozy and wonderful.
March 19, 2026
not Streatfeild's best, but still a good read at bedtime (three stars for daytime reading, four for bedtime which is when I read it)
July 21, 2026
Classic story of a family of children with their individual talents and the challenge of being poor with rich relatives. Many scrapes and adventures keep the story going.
October 27, 2015
Nice story covering about two years in the lives of the Bell family of London. The father, Alex, is a minister, while his wife, Cathy, takes care of everyone. Paul, the oldest, wants to be a doctor like his Uncle Jim, Jane wants to dance, and so does the youngest, Angus, once he sees a ballet! Ginny frequently finds herself in trouble, due to her "'satiable curiosity" along with her desire to help out. Very enjoyable.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews