Beechy of the Harbour School by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
A slight but rather genuine thing, Beechy of the Harbour School does not attempt to reinvent the wheel but still gives you something quietly competent beneath it. The titular Beechy, a nickname for her actual name of ‘Bice’, is the lead character and this is her first term at the Harbour School. Inevitably she comes into conflict with another girl and inevitably, things get sorted out in a rather deft little ‘crikey, we’ve only got a few pages left to go’ sort of manner. None of this is a spoiler, by the way, because we all know how these books go by now and like I said: no reinvented wheel here.
But this is fun. It’s a little bit The School by the River and a little bit A Genius at the Chalet School and it has that kind of very close family vibe and a ‘wisdom is my middle name’ Headteacher which is just all very comfortable and familiar and rather sweet with it. Brent-Dyer knows what she’s doing at this point and even though there are flashes of thinner stuff here and I wouldn’t especially characterise this as ‘outstanding Exile-esque stuff’, there’s still enough strength and confidence and skill to give you something very pleasant.
Brent-Dyer’s always strong with her adults and this is no exception. I particularly enjoyed one teacher who, when presented with a pupil who ‘pads’ her writing with adjectives, sets her assignments which won’t allow this. I also enjoyed the same teacher asking her students to write about girls fifty years ago which is what I did in my PhD and was quite the startling thing to suddenly see on the page. Everything is already done! Nothing is new!
As a whole: fun, one for completionists, not the best EBD but definitely not the worst. If we have a sliding scale from Exile to Althea, it’s definitely towards the top of the middle (let’s say, it’s a hearty Island / Richenda). (if you know you know, etc, etc).
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Daisy May Johnson 
I’ve never read this one… is it difficult to get hold of a copy?
I’ve only ever seen one copy of it in the wild (this one!) but there’s a few online (but only a handful, I think). So yes! Sort of! (best answer ever, this one!!).
You’re very generous: I thought it was absolutely terrible! I appreciate that it was probably intended for the Sunday School prize market, but all that preachy religious stuff did my head in.
Ha! No, I can definitely see that but I think – as it does tend to do with Brent-Dyer when she gets On One – it just sort of slid past me a bit. Kind of like the bit where Angela Brazil does an interminable ‘fairy stories’ section…