So the problem with a massive binge on one author – and one series – is that it doesn’t leave a lot of other things to write about. And so here we are, with a two book children’s book review special for the quick reviews this month. Which makes it three classic middle grade books in just over a week after Juliet Overseas the other week!
Gemma by Noel Streatfeild
This was a Carlisle acquisition and is a later Streatfeild talented children story. And I love this sort of thing. There is ballet in this – but it’s not the key focus. The Gemma of the title is the daughter of an actress, who has herself been a child star. But she’s reached the awkward age and the parts have dried up. Her mother however has been offered a part in a tv series and sends Gemma to stay with her sister and her husband and their children. Gemma has never lived a normal life – but her cousins are not what she expects – they musical in various ways and are quite happy to add Gemma to their lives and try and help her adjust. It’s charming.
A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley
This is one of my Bristol purchases from last summer after the talk about time travel and time slip stories for children. I read Alison Utley’s Little Grey Rabbit books as a child, but never this. Traveller in Time is set in the 1930s when a group of children visit their aunt at her farm in Derbyshire and one of them, Penelope finds herself slipping back in time to the sixteenth century when the house was owned by Francis Babbington, who is at the centre of a plot to try to free Mary Queen of Scots. It’s quite a quiet novel in terms of action but it’s very evocative of the the two time periods – and you know your history, you will feel sympathy for Pen as she knows what is to come.
And that’s your lot this month. The good news is I only have a couple of Ruth Galloway books to go, so next month I should have more choices…
Happy Humpday!
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 
I love the Gemma books. I inherited them from an older cousin when I was about 8.
I don’t know how I never came across them before – but now I need to read the others too!
There are 4 Gemma books altogether. I have a sister 11 years younger than me, who had adopted some of my Noel Streatfeild books (including the Gemma series) and some others, after I left home. I think I found replacements at a not too outrageous price (they were all published in Armada Lions and I think they’re easier to find than some of her other books).