Showing results by author "Noel Streatfeild" in All Categories

Penguin presents the unabridged downloadable audiobook edition of Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild, read by Janet Streatfeild. 'I wonder...if other girls had to be one of us, which of us they'd choose to be?' Pauline longs to be an actress. Petrova is happiest playing with cars and engines. And if she could...Posy would dance all day! But when their benefactor Great-Uncle Matthew disappears, the Fossil girls share a future of a dazzling life onstage, where their dreams and fears will soon come true....

Harriet’s best friend, Lalla, dreams of being the best skater in the world - but when Harriet discovers her own natural talent on the ice, the girls’ friendship comes under threat. Will Harriet choose Lalla or her own glittering future?

Margaret Thursday was named after the day she was found on the church steps as a baby. But she isn’t really an orphan – each year a bag of gold coins is left at the church for her keep. When the money suddenly stops, her guardians have no choice but to send her away to an orphanage. The orphanage is worse than they could have imagined. Vowing to protect her new friends, Peter and Horatio, Margaret plans their daring escape...but she’ll have to outwit Matron at every turn.

A full cast dramatisation of this classic children's book. Pauline, Petrova, and Posy Fossil are not really sisters; even their surname is invented since Great Uncle Matthew(GUM) adopted each of them on his various fossil-hunting trips. When the trio decide to "put our name in the history books because it's our very own", each Fossil uses her individual talents to achieve their joint aim in this captivating story, now a modern children's classic.

When Margaret Thursday lands a role as a child actress at a well-known London theatre, becoming famous almost overnight, news of her success reaches her bitter enemy, the matron of her old orphanage. Margaret knows that Matron is set on revenge, but she keeps her head held high, focusing on the play. But Matron’s evil plans are well prepared and Margaret is going to need her wits about her – and the help of her friends – if she is to escape unharmed.

The Heath children have tennis running through their blood - their father and grandfather were top players - and the twins are championship material. However, to everyone's surprise, it is their lazy and rebellious younger sister, Nicky, who has the most natural ability. Nicky begins to practise in secret, but, talented at tennis as she is, she has battles to win with herself - on and off the tennis court. 

Peter and Santa live a rather dull existence with their Aunt Rebecca, but when she dies they face the awful prospect of life in separate orphanages. In desperation they run away to find their only living relative, Uncle Gus, who works in a circus as a clown. Gus will let them stay only if they promise to work hard and so the children plunge headlong into the circus world, where they soon discover skills they never knew they had. But life is so different - will they ever truly belong?

Every family has its secrets, but it was a huge surprise to the three young Forbeses, fresh from a country vicarage, to discover that their grandmother was a famous actress. Sent to live with her in bombed-out, wartime London, they soon discovered that they were expected to follow in the family footsteps - to the footlights! As an actress herself, Noel Streatfeild was familiar with all the details of the backstage world of the theatre. She has created an authentic, perceptive and vivid picture of theatrical life - from stage school to auditions and performances.