365 Day Journal Challenge - Day 123

[dimity_blue]

Day 123. Discuss your first love and first kiss.

Day 123. Discuss a book you love.

There are so many possible answers to this! I'll go for a book series I've loved since my Auntie Vi gave me a tatty, dog-eared Armada version of the third book, The Princess of the Chalet School.

Comments

[swordznsorcery]

Is there an element of autobiography in the series? I ask because I was looking through one just the other day: "Jo Returns To The Chalet School", I think it was called. She was all growed up and had become a successful author, and it amused me. Still, what better fate for a writer to give their main character!

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Not really. As Sallymn said though, Jo was a Mary Sue. Maybe the author had wanted to be married to a doctor with a bazillion children?

Almost all the 'good' girls wind up married to doctors or return as teachers. Or even return as teachers then marry doctors. I think we can safely say EMBD considered marrying a doctor to be the best thing for a girl to do.

[swordznsorcery]

But not becoming a doctor!

Still, at least she let her characters age, which is more than some authors do. :D

[lost_spook]

At least one of them does become a doctor - but she gives it up to marry a doctor!

[swordznsorcery]

Urgh. Olden times, thou art problematic. I hope he was a very rich doctor!

[lost_spook]

Well, it's not that bad - re-reading the whole series at once the marrying doctors thing is pretty funny (or not), but as there was a TB San closely attached to the school, it means old girls can hang around and have children. (Joey has around six million children in between writing six million books. Possibly a slight exaggeration but not much. She starts out with triplets.) And while the teachers and girls tend to give up their jobs on marriage (except for writing), unfortunately people then did as a rule, but you get all the girls contemplating quite a few different careers - doctors, nurses, social workers, academics, librarians, vets, gardeners, going into the business, teaching, acting, music, archaeologists - which, given that it was written 1925-1970 is actually fairly interesting and impressive, as it would have given a lot of girls reading pause for thought about some of their options.

But the doctor thing gets risible pretty quick from a modern adult pov!!

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Joey has around six million children in between writing six million books. Possibly a slight exaggeration but not much.

It's really not much of an exaggeration! Good God.