New Girls (Guys are welcome, too!) - Introduce yourself

Welcome to the Chalet School group at LibraryThing. After many episodes of derailing threads in other groups, I came to the conclusion that LT needs a dedicated Chalet School group. I've been collecting the Armada paperback editions for most of my life, and finally completed the set this year. (YAY!) Now copies of the unabridged editions have started falling into my hands. (Oh dear.) Sometime soon I want to re-read the whole series from the start.

Ooh, I'd like to read the series from start to finish. I acquired, and read, them willy-nilly and in the beginning I would get confused in my chronology and characters. Of course, some of that was not my fault, but the author's fault. I thinked I subconsciously caught most of the character's age inconsistencies in the series. It is SO important to school age children how old one is, particularly in comparison with others, that I tend to keep careful track of such things in books and in RL.

I posted this in another thread, but this seems like to place to mention how I got started on the series. I've only been reading them for a few years. The Chalet School series came up again and again at LibraryThing as a series I should read, but was not available in local libraries or bookstores and I was reluctant to commit sight unseen as it were to even one of the series. Two Chalet School Girls in India and Visitors for the Chalet School were two Chalet school fill-ins that I got as e-book loans to get an idea of what the series was like. The rest is history. GGBP has promised to publish them all and I THINK I have all the ones written by EBD that they have published so fa as well as some fill-ins. I despaired of getting the Chambers hardback editions and do not own a single one, but once I realized that GGBP was going to publish all of them in unabridged form, I mostly gave up on the Armada and HarperCollins Editions. I say mostly, because sometimes I get impatient and get one of the abridged version anyway.

How did other folks get their start in reading the series? Which editions do you own?

>2 MDGentleReader: How did other folks get their start in reading the series? Which editions do you own?

I was about 10/11 and must have been sick or something, because my mother brought home a 3-in-1 from the library for me (School at the Chalet/ Chalet School in Exile / Three Go to the Chalet School, I think. Though that is a pretty weird combination, now that I look at it).

After that, I tried to get my hands on all the rest - public libraries, school libraries, bookshops (secondhand and new). I was lucky that Armada were reprinting them at the time (late 80's/early 90's) so they were available. I pretty much managed to read all of them in some form or another.

Unfortunately I've moved countries several times since then, and have now even swopped continents, so even the partial collection I owned is long since gone. I do have a lot of them in (probably not strictly legal) ebook format, and I'd love to get all of them that way (but legally), but there aren't that many available at the moment so far as I can see.

That 3-in-1 does seem like an odd combination, but in a way it makes sense. You get sort of an overview of turning points. First the opening of the school, then the major disruption of the war, then the introduction of Mary-Lou. Also, at least in my opinion, they are among the best books in the series.

It would be nice to have them available in e-book format. A series that big takes up a lot of shelf space. I wouldn't want to give up my solid books yet, but the day could come when I just don't have room for them.

>3 Scorbet:, 4: There are some really weird combinations of the books in various omnibus editions. Not sure what the publishers were thinking!

I must have started reading the Chalet School books when I found them at the library - probably when I was about 9 or 10. I read them out of order and in the abridged Armada versions, so was not aware of the inconsistencies (EBDisms). I know I never found any of the holiday titles (Jo to the rescue, Joey goes to the Oberland, etc) and also missed a few of the later titles (Redheads, Jane). I used to snap up any second hand copies that I could find on the church bookstall or at jumble sales, but discarded them over the years. It's only in the last 5 years that I have got back into the series, through friends with similar reading tastes, and have been collecting the GGBP editions. I've found that the series holds up very well to reading as an adult, with characters who grow and change over time, and exciting, if melodramatic, plots and problems to solve.

I started reading them when I was around 11. A friend gradually loaned me all of hers and I carefully hid them and read them because my Dad didn't like my sister and I reading boarding school books - he'd been to boarding school and hated it so he didn't want us getting the wrong impression and begging to go ourselves!

I started collecting Armada copies whenever I could around ten years ago, aided and abetted by the local second hand bookshop where I lived at the time. The ladies in there kept copies hidden away for special customers who really loved the books. They even reserved an entire box of hardcovers that came in and let me buy them gradually over the course of six months!

I've read them all out of order so the EBDisms don't bother me too much and I'm still trying to fill in gaps in my collection and upgrade to hardcover whenever I spot any.

>6 archerygirl:

You're lucky to have found hardcovers. Did you get them in Canada? I've been looking here for over 35 yours, but the first hardcover I've ever seen in person is the one I ordered from the UK last month.

I was introduced to the Chalet School by a friend when I was in my late teens or early twenties. I've always liked old kids' mysteries and school stories, and found that even as a (supposed) adult, I liked these, too.

I've got mostly Armada paperbacks with a few GGB editions for some of the ones I never found, and have a small number of hardcovers. Those are rare here, though. On the other hand, since the antique dealers mostly don't know what they're worth on the book market, they're also less expensive. I always buy the hardcover even if I already have the paperback.

I've never even seen a hardback in real life - just pictures on line. They were really expensive on line, even when in poor condition when I first started looking for this series. I don't know if the presence of the GGBP books in the market have changed this.

One of my friends has managed to assemble a complete collection of hardbacks. They do look beautiful on her shelves, with their dustjackets (she had to get photocopies of some), but I have no idea how much she spent on them - rather a lot, I imagine. I only have Armadas and GGBP editions; my budget is too small and my shelves too short for hardcovers.

I started reading these when we lived in London & I was about 8 or 9; my mother bought me the first one or two because I had read some Enid Blyton school stories, and I was hooked. That was around 1970/71, when Armada was publishing a # of them. I think I now have a complete collection of the paperbacks; would love to get my hands on the unabridged versions, though.

Trying to remember when I first read Chalet School books involved a bit of memory searching before I was able to twig onto the fact that my sister and I received our first Chalet School books when I was 10. We were living overseas in South East Asia at the time and British/ European books were easier to come by than North American books, hence my childhood reading was comprised of Enid Blyton books as well as Tintin, Asterix and Chalet School stories. Most of the Chalet School books we read were from the first part of the series when Maggie ran the school and Jo was still an impish girl. I don't have any of the books we read as girls anymore but based on the cover art available, it looks like we were reading Armada paperbacks.

When we went to Europe one summer on a family vacation I insisted that we visit the Tryol/Oberammergau area because of the Chalet School books. We were traveling through Europe in a rented camper van for two months so detours like mine were permissible if the driver (Dad) was okay with the idea, which he was.

I would love to revisit the series, and read all of the books that I have never read! I am now excited to learn that unabrided versions were published.

Thanks for the invitation to the group, Sylvia!

I'm in the (minority) group of people who've only come to the Chalet School books as an adult. I've found out about them about three years ago and have since been buying the GGB editions as they became available, so I have about eighteen of them now (all by EBD, I'm not that interested in the volumes by other authors), of which I've read half (I like to save them up as comfort reads for when I'm in bed with the flu or having a bad day).

I'll admit that, in addition to reading the books, the collecting aspect appeals to me as well -- GGB seem to come out with three or four volumes a year, which is manageable, and I like seeing the row filling up. I'm reading the books I do have in order -- the last one I read was no. 35 (A Genius at the Chalet School) and I'll continue with no. 38 (Excitements at the Chalet School) next, even though I've since bought no. 32. Anal, I know.:)

(If anyone has any questions about German bits in the text, I'll be happy to help.)

I must say that the Chalet School books did wonders for my German -- I still recall useful bits and pieces, like the names of meals. Just used them in June on a quick work trip to Frankfurt!

It's so nice to see you all joining the group.

How good is EBD's German usage? She mostly uses single words and short phrases, but is she using them accurately? My own German knowledge is just enough to get the gist of things without any awareness of subtleties of grammar or usage.

>15 SylviaC:: Apparently she does make some grammatical errors, but my own German isn't refined enough to catch them either.

>7 SylviaC: I grew up in England and moved to Canada five years ago, so most of my hardcovers were found over there. I found one hardcover in a shop here not long after I moved and visited that shop regularly until it closed, but never found another. Painful!

During a trip back home last year, my parents and I made a trip to Hay-on-Wye and I was able to save up and buy a couple more hardcovers so I finally have a copy of The School at the Chalet, which I've been looking to get for years.

13> I'm always intrigued by how the Chalet School books look for people who came to them as adults. Is it difficult to get into them or do you drop into the world easily?

Thanks for the invite SylviaC!

I started reading CS when I was in Primary School (so 8/9/10), the local newsagents used to sell the Armada's so I bought a couple with my pocket money. And I pretty muich haven't looked back since.

In terms of my collection, I have a complete (EXCEPT Does It Again) set of Armada's, mostly the 80's "dotty" covers as that was when I was serious (and able to afford!) about the collecting.

I've just returned from a trip to Europe, in which I insisted that we make time to go to Innsbruck & Pertisau, where I took many photos of "random" (to my husband at least :) ) buildings and signs and landmarks. I was very excited the whole time we were there!

I also found that reading the books helped a bit with reading/interpreting the German I saw/heard - I couldn't do word-for-word translations, but I could make pretty educated guesses at the signs and things in museums.

I was on holiday when this group began, in Pertisau, actually, so missed the opening posts. However as Back-to-School looms I will read all the threads and add my bit. I started reading with the issuing of the first Armadas - I was the target age - and have been reading, and buying, on and off ever since. I've now got a complete collection (and more) in hardbacks and I'm buying the GGBP editions as they appear. Do have a look at my library: I have a Girlsown collection and all my Chalet School books are tagged.

Off to look at the other threads now.

Lovely to see you here Kerry! Hope you had a good holiday and enjoyed some CS sightseeing!

Hello all!

I started reading the CS books when I was about 8 or 9 and I borrowed Peggy of the Chalet School from the local library, in the mid 1990s. I loved it (it's still one of my favourites), and I was very excited to find that my mum had a dozen or so others at home. I completed my collection a few years ago when GGBP reprinted Adrienne at the Chalet School. It's a hotchpotch of hardbacks (Chambers and Dymocks' Australian editions), Armada paperbacks, and GGBP reprints. I haven't picked up a Chalet book lately, but I tend to come back to them at least once a year.

Hi, @kateferguson! Welcome to the group. Are the Dymocks' editions similar to Chambers?

Yes, they're pretty similar, but a bit more cheaply printed I think. They're still unabridged and they have the same gorgeous Nina K. Brisley artwork.

new to the group- so excited to find it!

How did other folks get their start in reading the series? Which editions do you own?
It was 1983 and I was 9 years old, visiting family in Ireland. My aunt had a boss who had a sister who worked in Hodges Figgis, and she put together a package of books to amuse me over the summer. I was instantly hooked on Malory Towers, St. Clares, and most of all the Chalet School. Over the years, every time I came back to Ireland for a summer, I picked up any CS books I could, stalking the bookstores throughout Dublin. My family got in on the game, and picked up books when they saw them to save for me when I came to visit.

By college, I had most of the Armadas, and thanks to eBay I have since almost completed my collection ( I think I am missing just 2 or 3). Those live at my mom's because my sister and I share custody of the collection. I've been working on collecting all of the GGBP as they come out (one for me and one for my sister) so I hope to someday have a complete collection of the unabridged books.

My mom loves it- she read the Chalet School books when she was young in Ireland in the 1940s and 1950s!

Welcome, @ForeignCircus! We're glad you found the group, too! The Chalet School seems to run in your family.

Thanks SylviaC!

Oh boy. I've been very neglectful of LibraryThing lately and only just recently found out about this group.

My first introduction to the Chalet School was a couple of Armada copies that I found in a second hand book shop back when I was a teen. The Wrong Chalet School and A Rebel at the Chalet School. Rebel confused me when I read it because of the fact it is the second half of Lintons which I was completely unaware of at the time. It made much more sense when I finally got my hands on the first half of the split book.

My collection now is a small collection of GGB editions along with a few other EBD books amongst others. I was collecting them when I had a job and will again when I find new employment. I've read mostly Armadas which I borrowed from the library and some I bought which I no longer have. Crazy me went through a stage of giving away the majority of my books. Bad influences.

Welcome! It's good to have new members to join in the chat. I too went through a phase of getting rid of books that I thought I'd grown out of - big mistake! Fortunately my only CS books at that time were some very tatty Armadas, most of which I've managed to replace with GGBP editions.

Welcome, @Kaydeanne, and also any other new members! It's so nice to see people joining.

I've been re-reading the series, but other things have gotten in the way in the last month or so. I should be able to get back to it after Christmas.

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas, or a happy holiday of any other kind.