The weather is slowing getting a tinier bit warmer but once I get home from Company X and feed the spouse? It’s off to curl up on the bed with a book.

Well, at least the plan is to read but mostly I wake up a few hours later with the edge of a book pressed on my cheek.

Not exactly the best look ever…Now during those brief moments before I drift off into Dreamland I’ve been reading cozy books like Noel Streatfeild’s 1944 Theater Shoes (published in the UK as Curtain Up).

Like just about every other Noel Streatfeild’s children’s’ book, Theater Shoes features a family of children who through circumstances shed their everyday (i.e. boring) lives and discover a world of creativity and a whole new way of life.

It’s World War II England and the Forbes children (Sorrel, Mary and Holly) have been uprooted from their cozy existence living with their widowed former Naval officer father in Guernsey once the Germans came calling. Mr Forbes joins the Navy and entrusts his motherless children to his pastor father and his housekeeper Hannah.

Since this is war and it is a Noel Streatfeild children’s’ book, Mr Forbes goes missing in the Pacific and then Reverend Forbes (a very vague man who barely remembers he even has grandchildren dies). Oh what will happen to the Forbes?

If you’re thinking the Forbes end up a children’s home or are parceled out around their late grandfather’s parish, bad reader! Bad! The children find out their late mother was a member of the Warren family, one of the most illustrious and amazing theatrical families in England. It’s like finding out you’re a Barrymore or a Booth. Apparently, the Forbes have never meet their Warren relations because their mother ran off and married their father vs the husband chosen for her.

But there isn’t a book if the Forbes don’t go to London and explore their Warren heritage so off Sorrel, Mark, Holly and Hannah go.

Once in London, things aren’t the best for the Forbes. Their Warren grandmother lives in her own little glamorous world barely acknowledging there is a war or that life outside the theater exists. In my head? Grandmother Warren (aka Margaret Shaw) is played by Dame Maggie Smith and says theater “thea-a-tah” like she’s channeling a drunken Bette Davis. Now the Forbes children have been gently raised and are SHOCKED! Shocked I tell you by everything around them.

First off, their late mother’s room is a creepy shrine while the rest of the house that Grandmother Warren never ventures in has been stripped bare, the furnishings sold to pay bills. Their aunts and uncles help out Grandmother Warren but they have their own issues. And the Forbes children are going to go to theater school. Because heaven forbid a Warren not be talented and amazing. Even duds like Aunt Lindsey and Aunt Marguerite go on stage.

And the only school good enough for the Warren/Forbes? Madame Fidolia’s Children’s Academy of Dancing and Stage Training.

What?

Did you think they would end up at Cora Wintle’s school? 🙂

If at this point you’re tempted to roll your eyes and put down Theater Shoes, keep reading. Ever wanted to know what happened to the Fossil sisters? Well, Pauline is huge Hollywood star, Petrova is flying for the war effort and Posy is safely in Hollywood too, dancing in movies and wanting to re-create a ballet troupe. And remember Pauline’s rival for parts? The ugly but clever Winifred in the mustard frock? She’s teaching at the Academy now alongside Theo Dane, Miss Jay and the rest.

Of course, the Warren talent is in the Forbes children and the Fossil sisters “adopt” them with Pauline sponsoring Sorrel, Petrova sponsoring Mark and Posy sponsoring Holly even though Holly can barely dance. One of my favorite parts about this? Besides Petrova being all “dude here’s a screwdriver for a present” is the provision that the Forbes children get pocket money. Pocket money sounds so much cooler than an allowance. I’m going to call my Ladies Nice Things Account my pocket money from now on. But even better than pocket money? The Forbes have some Warren cousins who also attend the Academy and the Warren cousins are so much cooler than their dull Forbes relations. Isn’t sorrel something sheep eat? <shakes self awake>

Once you’ve read enough Noel Streatfeild things, you stumble across the trope of a child being destined to follow a certain path. Skating Shoes‘ Lalla Moore is being groomed to fill her dead skating champion father’s shoes. Dancing Shoes has Rachel becoming an actor like her late father and Hillary’s late adoptive mother wanting her to attend the Royal Ballet school because Hillary’s biological mother was a dancer. And let’s not forget Dancing Shoes’ Dulcie Wintle and Ballet Shoes‘ Posy Fossil almost dancing out of the womb. And imagine if one of David and Polly Forum’s brood didn’t have a lick of talent?

Sorrel and Holly have inherited the Warren talents and of course they will find a life in theater. But Mark? He might like just like Sir Joshua Warren but he’s future Navy and resists anyone telling him he is the least bit Warren. I find Mark boring and wish he had been packed off to school far far far away from London. Because damn…thank goodness for Cousin Miriam (one of the few Streatfeild characters with amazing talents who you don’t want to smack into next week) and Cousin Miranda who I would love to see in a cage match with Dulcie Wintle over a part circa 1959. Noel Streatfeild is so good at writing these quite talented and lovely little bitches in training.

But for every scene of Sorrel worrying about Mark getting into the right school so he can join the Navy (don’t care more Miriam and Miranda please!), the reader gets a little slice of life in wartime London. The growing lack of variety in food, how hard it is to manage decent clothes on coupons, consumer goods disappearing unless you have oceans of ready money.  Money might have been tight for the Fossils growing up but hey pawn your necklaces to your boarder and you can take that five pounds, go to Harrods and get a velvet dress in less time than it takes me to explain to Blacklight why his Facebook feed is blowing up about football on Super Bowl weekend. There simply isn’t the money or clothing coupons to replace a shabby outgrown dress for Sorrel until Aunt Lindsey is able whip up a dress by cutting down one of her evening frocks. Cousin Miriam looks wonderful in a white fur coat but I really hope she likes that coat because she’s going to have to wear it even when the sleeves creep up her arms and the fur dries out and sheds everywhere like the Reverend’s leopard gloves in a Fairacre novel. And your sweet ration? I really hope Pauline can keep sending those chocolates from America…

Of course, everything comes out right in the end. Even if the longed for brawl between Miranda and Sorrel in a dressing room never happens. I really wanted costumes crushed, powder and makeup smeared, telegrams and boxes of chocolate flung all over the place. Because that would be amazing and so not Noel Streatfeild. Or should I say everything comes out right-ish because the war is still ongoing. And if you know your history, things are about to get much rougher for the British citizens. It’s not my all time favorite Noel Streatfeild children’s book, but it’s certain in my Noel Streatfeild Top 5 and if any of my step-nieces showed the least interest in something that wasn’t Disney (highly doubtful)  I would buy them their very own copies of Theater Shoes in heartbeat.