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A review by spectacledbear
The Rivals of the Chalet School by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer
3.0
Mixed feelings about this one - in some ways it's classic CS, with alarums and excursions in every other chapter, and Joey having a (very close) brush with death. The introduction of another school across the lake is a bit of a clumsy plot device and the casual racism from its pupils is.... well, very much of its time I suppose.
I'm not someone who is particularly offended by books reflecting the period in which they were written (this might seem a strange thing to say, but there are, amazingly, people who are. And, even more amazingly, people who are offended by the lack of feminism and of financially independent women in Jane Austen. Go figure) so the racism didn't faze me much.
I did, however, find myself extremely fazed by the mention of using the Ku Klux Klan as a model for behaviour. I don't know much about the way the KKK was viewed in the UK in the 20s and 30s, but I'm honestly surprised that it would have been considered at all appropriate by EBD or her readers.
That aside, I enjoyed this book - I don't remember reading it before and it was the usual rollicking yarn.
I'm not someone who is particularly offended by books reflecting the period in which they were written (this might seem a strange thing to say, but there are, amazingly, people who are. And, even more amazingly, people who are offended by the lack of feminism and of financially independent women in Jane Austen. Go figure) so the racism didn't faze me much.
I did, however, find myself extremely fazed by the mention of using the Ku Klux Klan as a model for behaviour. I don't know much about the way the KKK was viewed in the UK in the 20s and 30s, but I'm honestly surprised that it would have been considered at all appropriate by EBD or her readers.
That aside, I enjoyed this book - I don't remember reading it before and it was the usual rollicking yarn.