British Author Challenge September 2023: School Stories

Hogwarts crest

I'm using school to mean any type of educational institution; books set in a preschool or a university or a secret necromantic training center all count.

Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
The Politeness of Princes and Other School Stories by P.G. Wodehouse
Witch Week by Diana Wynne Jones
David Blaize by E.F. Benson
Chalet School series by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer
Malory Towers series by Enid Blyton
Marlows series by Antonia Forest
Stalky & Co. by Rudyard Kipling
Tom Brown's School Days by Thomas Hughes
A Fourth Form Friendship by Angela Brazil
To Sir, With Love by E. R. Braithwaite
Trebizon series by Anne Digby
Dimsie series by Dorita Fairlie Bruce
Goodbye, Mr. Chips by James Hilton
The Abbey Girls series by Elsie J. Oxenham
Aviary Hall series by Penelope Farmer
J C T Jennings series by Anthony Buckeridge
Evelyn Finds Herself by Josephine Elder
The Loom of Youth by Alec Waugh
Porterhouse Blue by Tom Sharpe

I am definitely reading Tales from a Village School by Miss Read. This is a collection of shorter works by Miss Read which are based on her teaching experiences in the 1920s and 1930s.

If there's time I'd like to re-read The Gate Of Angels by Penelope Fitzgerald (1990), which is set at Cambridge in 1912. I really enjoyed it the first time I read it some years ago, but felt it definitely warranted a re-read to understand everything Fitzgerald is doing in the book.

Can't resist another visit to Harry Potter, starting with the first book, then the first and best movie.

>3 m.belljackson: I favor books and movies three and five myself, mostly because I've always had a soft spot for Sirius Black.

>4 amanda4242: Sirius was way cool and I love Hagrid, Harry, Hermione, and the Weasley twins (not disgusting parts) humor.

I read Tales from a Village School by Miss Read. Miss Read (Dora Saint) taught in a rural school in Kent in the 1920s and then as a supply (substitute) teacher in the Cotswolds after WWII. These are stories based on her real-life teaching experiences. The stories were originally published in various British magazines between 1949 and 1962, and they eventually led to the publisher Michael Joseph asking her to write a full-length book about her experiences. And so the Fairacre and Thrush Green series were born.

The school stories collected here are arranged according to the school year: from September to the last day of school in July, and as in all of Miss Read's books, we watch as the seasons change in nature and in the lives of the villagers. Each story is only 3-4 pages in length, and are great fun and sometimes laugh-out loud funny. A wonderful way to start out the new school year.

I re-read Diana Wynne Jones's Witch Week, the third book in the extraordinary Chronicles of Chrestomanci. Jones does a wonderful job of showing the miserable pecking order of schools--and then makes school even worse by throwing in the threat of being burned at the stake!

A great entry in a great series.

Completed The Maidens by Alex Michaelides. Set in Cambridge.

Loved the third reading of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, but skipped Book 2,
ranking Dobby right down there with Jar Jar Binks...

I moved on to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which was great because
I didn't remember how any of the big mysteries got solved.

>9 m.belljackson: ranking Dobby right down there with Jar Jar Binks

1000% agree!

Moving halfway through the jumping around plot of The Goblet of Fire
and
I'll join my daughter for her favorite quote:

"...that manky old boot..."

I'm sneaking in Good-bye, Mr. Chips by James Hilton to end out the month.

The October thread is up!

https://www.librarything.com/topic/354029#