Children's Books discussion

Yes, I read several of them as an adult and loved them. I think I would have loved them as a kid, too. My favorite is "Ballet Shoes"--I loved the personalities of the girls and GUM and, being big into ballet and theater myself at the time, found all those elements really engaging, too. To me, they are warm and sweet stories without being too cloying.

Ballet Shoes is one of those books that I read so often as a child that it's woven into the fiber of my being, and it's hard to judge it objectively. The other books are less familiar to me, and I enjoy them -- not as passionately as Ballet Shoes, but the characters are real, usually likeable, but interestingly flawed, and the settings are intriguing and have an element of wish-fulfilment for stage-struck (and dance-struck) girls. Sometimes, just sometimes, the prose can seem a little wooden, but I still think, they're well worth reading.

I've only read Ballet Shoes, and only as an adult, but I loved it, gave it four stars, and wish I'd read it as a child. My review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

(btw, note the unexpected spelling of the last name - I fixed the 'this topic is about' to link to the author you intended :)

The audio book versions read by Elizabeth Sastre are tremendous. She does Ballet Shoes, Dancing Shoes, and Theater Shoes. I wish she would do more.