I'm so happy to have found this. A delightful story of a vicarage family. Noel Streatfeild know this topic well, having grown up the daughter of a parson. A wonderful family, great characters! A joy to travel this journey with them. I'll be on the lookout for more of Ms Streatfeild's books. ( )

I have always loved Noel Streatfeild's books and as a child I got my library to ILL them for me or hunted through second hand book stores to find all of them. She tells the perfect "girls stories". I was always able to find one character in each book that was my favorite. They definitely stand up to re-reads. ( )

It's always nice to acquire and read another Noel Streatfeild, and this is a nice edition with a brief biography and glossary in the back, intended for modern children who don't know much about the 1950s. This particular novel is a little unusual in that it started out as a series of radio plays.

It features the Bell family, who bear several striking resemblances to the author's own family, as portrayed in her autobiography 'The Vicarage Family'. As ever, there are some talented children: Paul who is highly academic and want to be a doctor, Jane who loves ballet, and Angus who sings well enough to have a place at a choir school but really doesn't want to sing. And then there's Ginnie, who is probably the one closest to Noel Streatfeild in character - kind-hearted but impulsive, bright but rebellious.

The book is a series of incidents through the year, showing the family contrasted with their rich and materialistic relatives, covering day-to-day problems and stresses, and seeing the children make some important decisions. It's far from the best of Noel Streatfeild's work, but it's very readable and I'm pleased to have this in my collection at last. ( )