boarding school girls and hairbrushes

I really loved the Antonia Forest book... She is like the Trollope of girls' school authors. The politics of all those relationships! The moral lessons.... usual british ones about fitting in and honesty and being a good sport even when situations are unjust.

I kept thinking of books like "Betty Wales, Freshman" or the Ruth Fielding ones where there is a definite heroine and she by her goodness and sweetness and loveliness naturally gets everyone else to be good. The villains turn out to be unhappy and misunderstood. Everyone joins the same club. (What would be the point of having a club if everyone were in it?)

These Autumn Term girls get along okay but their disasters are not magically fixed and everyone does not become likeable. The grownups do not find everything out -- badness is not always punished or discovered. Very cool!

I read all evening and it was good.

Iris, you should read "The Opoponax" for the stream of consciousness wacky analogue of schoolgirl life.