What is your favourite school series?

[Eddie Muir]

I've never read Biggles. The books have never appealed to me. However, I love the Just William and Jennings books and have read them all. I have been a big fan of both since the early fifties and have a complete set of the Just William books and all but two of the books in the Jennings series.

[Stephen]

Around my Blyton-reading childhood age, I was given a set of four hardback books full of boys' stories, and they sat on my shelves for years collecting dust! Eventually, I did venture to try one of them out, but I wasn't particularly impressed.

I did also once try out a Hardy Boys book, but just thought it was a rubbish version of Nancy Drew! I seem to remember someone getting pushed onto a railway line in front of a train (and somehow surviving) which does actually sound quite fun, but all that derring-do action wasn't my cup of tea at all.

[John Pickup]

I've read one Biggles book, many years ago and I can't remember a thing about it. Of the boys school stories my favourite was always Frank Richards' Billy Bunter series. I have 25 of the 38 hardbacks in their classic yellow dustwrappers. Jennings is another favourite, I have the first nine and two or three of the later ones.
I found a copy of The Worst Fifth On Record, a girls school story by Winifrid Norling a few months ago in a charity shop for 50p. I quite enjoyed it. I'd never heard of the author before.

[Francis]

I've read many Biggles books and some of the earlier ones are full of excitement and action but for schoolboy stories it was always the Billy Bunter Books that I enjoyed the most. Lots of Latin quotes to try and decipher! I thoroughly enjoyed the William books as well which were quite subversive and parodied social attitudes of their time. I know that the Chalet series of books were very popular with girls and are still very collected.

[floragord]

Our convent boarding school in Oxfordshire, like every other educational institution in the land! , didn't quite match up to Malory Towers, but how we enjoyed reading of the great mansion on the Cornish coast, the swimming pool on the cliffs, Darrell's journey through the system from new arrival to headgirl, and all the characters that peopled the books, one of the favourite Enid Blyton series of my childhood.

[Anita Bensoussane]

A few years ago I said that the Malory Towers series was my favourite. The St. Clare's and Malory Towers books are similar in many respects but the Malory Towers series is better-structured (one book per school year, and we follow the fortunes of Darrell Rivers closely as well as getting to know a number of other regular characters very well). The location of the school is appealing too, right by the sea in Cornwall, and the building sounds attractive and castle-like with its four towers. We don't get such a strong sense of place when reading the St. Clare's series, though it has a certain cosiness. When I think of Malory Towers I think mainly of outdoor scenes - towers, cliffs, the seawater pool and horse-riding. When I think of St. Clare's I think mainly of indoor scenes - midnight feasts in dimly-lit classrooms, people being locked up in boot cupboards etc., and the homely studies where the older girls relax.

However, I think the school series I look back on most fondly is actually the Naughtiest Girl series - although it's disappointing that there are only three full-length books and we don't go beyond the first form. Elizabeth Allen is a great character - impulsive, unpredictable and (at times) her own worst enemy, yet good-hearted and lots of fun. Whyteleafe is a somewhat experimental school, with the children being given more responsibility than usual, and the weekly meetings make for extremely interesting reading. The events surrounding Joan Townsend in the first book made a huge impression on me when I was a youngster, along with the gradual change in Elizabeth's own attitude. They're among the most thoughtful and emotional episodes that Enid Blyton ever wrote. A few years ago I read Anne Digby's Naughtiest Girl sequels, which still only go as far as the second form, and found them sadly lacking - though some are better than others. The stories are not as complex as Enid Blyton's originals, the style isn't the same and Anne Digby never really captures the essence of Whyteleafe, so I felt as though I were reading about a completely different school.

I have never read the Anne Digby ones [Naughtiest Girl continuation books] but have the others by Pamela Cox [St. Clare's and Malory Towers]. I find the St Clare's ones rather more satisfactory than the Malory Towers, and think it's because the Malory Towers ones deal with a younger set of girls and we have lost Darrell and Co. whereas we have the same main characters in the St Clare's additions.

I've read all Pamela Cox's St. Clare's books and some of her Malory Towers books, Daisy, and I tend to agree with you.

Regarding non-Blyton school stories, my favourites by far are the ones by Antonia Forest (Autumn Term, End of Term, The Cricket Term and The Attic Term.) They're part of a wonderful set of books about the Marlow family. It's a varied series of twelve books with some titles being set at school, some at the family home, one which deals with drug smuggling and one which is an adventure at sea. There are even two novels about the Marlows' Elizabethan ancestors. Beautifully written and the characters seem very real.

[timv]

I would agree with Anita that apart from Malory Towers my favourite school series is Antonia Forest's 'Marlows' books; I read most of these at secondary school and found them a dramatic and most realistic change from the average school series. ( I couldn't find any of the non-school books except 'Ready Made Family' until I was an adult.) The characters seemed real and all, even the apparent heroine Nicola, had their flaws; there was no sense of the author trying to create 'good' characters who the readers would feel inspired to follow. The matter of fact realism is somewhat similar to MT, with the class 'leader' (in the sense of strongest and bossiest character), 'Tim' aka Thalia Keith, as ruthless, whimsical and at times unpleasant as Alicia despite her brilliance as a form play producer. The six Marlow sisters did not all like each other, with even Nicola having prejudices, the twins were different not identical, and the flawed, paranoid and devious Senior Lois Sanger was equally unusual but you could see where her attitudes were 'coming from'. Nor was the Head a model of wisdom and idealism like Miss Grayling or Miss Theobald; she resented girls who were not keen to obey her tamely (eg Nicola and Jan Scott), appointed feeble Head Girls because they were biddable, and was mildly anti-Semitic to N's best friend Miranda.

'Antonia Forest' (real name Patricia Rubinstein) was brought up in Hampstead, which appears in the books as does a muddled-up Dorset (she lived later on in Bournemouth). As with Enid, you can see bits of Dorset appearing in her books as re-created by mixing different places- eg Dorchester, Lulworth, Christchurch.

[Wolfgang]

I wonder if anyone does identify herself enough to buy this:
https://www.ebay.de/itm/Official-Kids-G ... Gk61VYzxmg
https://www.ebay.de/itm/Offiziell-Kinde ... iyNCYU-c_g

[Anita Bensoussane]

The Malory Towers costume looks rather nice.

[mynameisdumbnuts]

I like MT best of all and really identified with Darrell as a child, mostly because I also struggled with a hot temper. One thing I like about the series is Darrell doesn't conquer her temper immediately; it's only around the fifth form that she gets a handle on it, which I think is realistic. It's nice to watch Darrell grow up from a new girl trying to find her footing to a capable leader and head girl. I also like that Enid shows other characters develop, too -- Mary-Lou becomes less shy, Sally struggles with her jealousy, Alicia softens her hard personality and Gwendoline ultimately learns important life lessons.

I enjoy St. Clare's, but the O'Sullivan twins fade into the background a bit as the series continues. The personality changes and revelations are all rather sudden -- the O'Sullivan twins and Bobby turn around their attitudes in the space of a book. I do enjoy Carlotta and Claudine and even Allison who I feel temper yet maintain their personalities.

I enjoy the novelty of Whyteleafe and the students all seem more well-rounded. Elizabeth has a variety of hobbies and interests unlike in SC or MT, where some characters have more rigid roles -- Belinda is the artistic one, Irene is the musical one, Bobby and Janet are the jokey ones, Carlotta is the wild one, etc. The children in Whyteleafe seem more inclined to break those boundaries. If I remember correctly, Elizabeth persuades John Terry to go horseback riding and Richard the clever musician to try gardening. I also like that Elizabeth continuously tries to master her impulsive nature, which shows both strength and flaws in her character.

I love Pamela Cox's MT and SC continuation stories. I think they capture the atmosphere and drama of both schools. Anne Digby's Whyteleafe books were very disappointing. I didn't like the plots or her writing style. I'd love someone to take Elizabeth Allen all the way to head girl of Whyteleafe in the style of the other two series.

[Rob Houghton]

Now I have all the St Clare's series in hardback with dustwrappers, I was gazing at the spines, and wondering why its 'The Twins at St Clare's', 'Second Form at St Clare's', 'Summer Term at St Clare's', 'Claudine at St Clare's', and then suddenly to finish of the series, 'Fifth Formers of St Clare's'...

How annoying not to have matching titles!! I guess I must be a bit picky but it really aggravates me, lol!

[Anita Bensoussane]

My edition is a 1970s Dragon paperback and the title of the last book has been altered to Fifth Formers at St. Clare's to fit in with the rest. The same thing applies to a couple of later Dragon and Armada editions:

http://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/book ... +Clare%27s" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Daisy]

And one other sticks out - "The O'Sullivan Twins".

[sixret]

That one can’t be helped.

The O’Sullivan Twins at St. Clare’s?

[mynameisdumbnuts]

Return to St. Clare's? Back to St. Clare's?