REVIEW: Apple Bough
Apple Bough: Noel Streatfield. Collins. 2000
I'm not intentionally reading ballet-themed books in one go. Besides, although it's set in the same world as Streatfield's Ballet Shoes, ballet plays a very small part of the story. Anyway, this turned out to be the next book on my 'to read' list.
It's familiar Streatfield ground, where the children are more grounded than their parents, artistic, some of them talented, and driven to work at it. They reminded me of the Winters of The Painted Garden, although the talent and roles are distributed somewhat differently among the Forum family.
Born to musical parents, it turns out that shy Sebastian is a child prodigy on the violin. He is asked to go on tour, and mother Polly, who s vague in every other way, is determined that the family will not be split up and that it will be a good thing for Sebastian hand his three siblings, to become world citizens. But over four years, they gradually grow to hate it, playing a wistful game of Let's Remember about their old home, Apple Bough, even though the youngest, Ettie, can't really remember it. The story is about how they find a way of getting their wish of a settled home where their things are always to hand in the same drawer.
Myra, the heroine, is Petrova the sensible one, who along with the governess and invaluable, if unimaginative help, Miss Popple, looks after the family. Wolfie (Wolfgang) is a show-off who wants to write pop songs (the book is set in the early sixties, and the family react with the horror you'd expect if a memeber of a vegan family said they wanted to become a butcher). But it his chance meeting with a film director on the train to London that is the first real chance the children see to be able to stay in England. Ettie (Ethel) particularly wants this, because her last ballet mistrss is keen for her to stick with one teacher and learn discipline and style with a view to applying to the Royal Ballet School. Enter Madam Fidolia. Enter a lot of other interesting characters: the children have to reach a certain point of misery for their accompanyist father to come to some shocking realsations, the most telling being that his children think of his and his mother as the children of the family. And his parents possibly agree.
This is all charming and well done but very familiar from other Streatfield family stories, from the dog to the children's bad bahaviour to the 12 year old licence law.
I'm not intentionally reading ballet-themed books in one go. Besides, although it's set in the same world as Streatfield's Ballet Shoes, ballet plays a very small part of the story. Anyway, this turned out to be the next book on my 'to read' list.
It's familiar Streatfield ground, where the children are more grounded than their parents, artistic, some of them talented, and driven to work at it. They reminded me of the Winters of The Painted Garden, although the talent and roles are distributed somewhat differently among the Forum family.
Born to musical parents, it turns out that shy Sebastian is a child prodigy on the violin. He is asked to go on tour, and mother Polly, who s vague in every other way, is determined that the family will not be split up and that it will be a good thing for Sebastian hand his three siblings, to become world citizens. But over four years, they gradually grow to hate it, playing a wistful game of Let's Remember about their old home, Apple Bough, even though the youngest, Ettie, can't really remember it. The story is about how they find a way of getting their wish of a settled home where their things are always to hand in the same drawer.
Myra, the heroine, is Petrova the sensible one, who along with the governess and invaluable, if unimaginative help, Miss Popple, looks after the family. Wolfie (Wolfgang) is a show-off who wants to write pop songs (the book is set in the early sixties, and the family react with the horror you'd expect if a memeber of a vegan family said they wanted to become a butcher). But it his chance meeting with a film director on the train to London that is the first real chance the children see to be able to stay in England. Ettie (Ethel) particularly wants this, because her last ballet mistrss is keen for her to stick with one teacher and learn discipline and style with a view to applying to the Royal Ballet School. Enter Madam Fidolia. Enter a lot of other interesting characters: the children have to reach a certain point of misery for their accompanyist father to come to some shocking realsations, the most telling being that his children think of his and his mother as the children of the family. And his parents possibly agree.
This is all charming and well done but very familiar from other Streatfield family stories, from the dog to the children's bad bahaviour to the 12 year old licence law.