This is the fourth "shoe book" that I've read, and so far it's my least favorite. For me, tennis as the talent du jour just wasn't as exciting or as interesting as the stage talents (dancing, acting, singing) of the other books.
And, dare I say it? Was the book less appealing because the children weren't orphans? In the other books, the children were surrounded by supportive caretakers - Garnie and Nana in Ballet Shoes, Hannah and Alice in Theater Shoes, and Pursey and Mrs. Storm in Dancing Shoes - who stood in for the children's missing parents. But in this book, Susan, Jim, Nicky, and David did have parents, and still, Pinny and Annie were the primary adults who supported and cared for them. Their mother basically popped in for a few cameos, while their father seemed like a gentler, British version of a male tiger mom.
As a children's book, this book may be a bit more difficult than the others for early elementary school readers. Young David - perhaps my favorite character - liked to use big words, and words that he spoke were frequently purposely misspelled to reflect his childlike pronunciation. The book also gets relatively detailed when recounting tennis matches, making certain excerpts a jumble of numbers unless the reader already understands how tennis is scored. And speaking of jumbles of numbers, there was also a lot of talk about money, as the family was not especially wealthy but needed money for tennis training. And honestly, with all the crowns, shillings, and pences being discussed, I really had no idea how much money anyone had.
As usual, the ending was abrupt and left me feeling disappointed. In this case, a very dramatic event occurred just before the ending, and I wasn't sure exactly what the point of it was, except maybe to present the lesson that just because a person is a star doesn't mean he/she can't also be a fool? Just seemed like somewhat of a sour note to end things on.
Still, I gave the book 3 stars because there was plenty also to enjoy. I liked that Pinny was a fountain of maxims, and I liked how familiar St. Clair's felt because its house structure so closely resembled Hogwarts.
Mostly I liked the nuanced character development. In previous books, we had talented children with ambition (Pauline, Posy), untalented children with other ambitions (Petrova), and talented children without ambition for that particular talent (Mark, Hilary). This time, in Susan, we had a child who was just talented enough to be noticed, but only if she worked really, really, really hard, and she had some ambition, but not a "champion temperament" (pg. 242). That is, she was willing to put in the work to become a star, but she lacked confidence and was self-conscious in front of an audience. Then there was Nicky, who certainly did have a champion temperament, and was talented to boot, but she was also lazy and needed to be taught self-discipline.
I always like it when books introduce readers to new ideas, and I can imagine that young readers today - who live in a world in which certain diseases are now rare - might be encountering "measles" and "mumps" for the first time. I suppose those illnesses seem old-fashioned these days.
I think this book is out of print, and the library edition we got is quite old, with a pretty uninteresting cover. I know you're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but I'm pretty sure that's what Isabelle did, and she wasn't really interested in reading this one.
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