The Chalet School and Rosalie & The Mystery at the Chalet School by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Two books in one which can be basically summed up as “girls: mean” and “girls: complicated!!!” We begin with a Mystery at the Chalet School which gives us a new girl with a MYSTERY and more of the delightful friendship group of Gill, Jacynth and Gay, and then we get a new girl who has a TINY PASH and we do not APPROVE but then she ultimately gets a grip and settles down to become a real Chalet School girl because THERE IS NO OTHER WAY.
I mean, this is one to read for completions sake and one for doing the series in full (and also for “how on earth did you manage to absolutely wreck yourself with a bit of string on the floor like that???”) but it’s kind of delightful in a sort of absolutely baffling way as well. It’s not what you’d call “good” by any means because I think we’ve rapidly got beyond such ideas in this series, but it still does it. We have genuine emotion and genuine heart in the tale of Miss Annersley returning to the fold, and then we have have [spoiler] pouring a ton of olive oil on her head. Amazing. What a series.
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Rosalie is a very girly girls book – everyone seems to keep getting narky and flouncing off in a huff!
Yes! It’s really some of the most stereotypically feminine stuff she does – and not at all comfortably. It’s also *super* interesting that she mainly does it with the Tom books – there’s more to be written there, I think! 🙂