Village School

I enjoy an older, cozy British novel from time to time, and in many ways, Village School did not disappoint. Our narrator, Miss Read, is a primary school teacher in a two-room schoolhouse in Fairacre, a village in the bucolic English countryside. Through her eyes we see the quiet doings of the villagers and especially the children both in school and out. Festivals, measles outbreaks, and choir practices enliven an otherwise placid atmosphere. I enjoyed escaping to a simpler world for a while. Unfortunately that world is also home to an undercurrent of gentile racism that was startling whenever it appeared. Because of it I was unable to truly enjoy the novel and won't be continuing on with the series.

A pure comfort read. A cosy non-mystery. This is the first in Miss Read's Fairacre series; it follows students, teachers and villagers through a school year in the English village of Fairacre, through Christmas pageants, substitute teachers, gentle romances, and the occasional domestic upheaval shortly after the end of WWII. It will unruffle your feathers if they need it, supposing you like this sort of thing. When the mood is on me, I like it very well. Jan Karon, without so much ecclesiastical perspective; or, as my daughter would have it, Angela Thirkell with the snark dialed back.

I turned to Miss Read's Fairacre Chronicles when I had finished the last Thrush Green book, The Year at Thrush Green. I had always thought the Thrush Green books infinitely better than the Mitford books my sisters-in-law so love. I was heartbroken when it was over. Thinking that the Fairacre novels would be more of the same, I turned to Village School.

Was I wrong! Yes, the story concerns a Cotswold village, as in Thrush Green. But the Fairacre novels are more worldly wise and the humor is much more sly. Thrush Green is the terribly idealized village everyone wishes they could live in; Fairacre is the village that you really live in, if you are lucky. The world of Fairacre is more realistic, with misbehaving children, out-of-wedlock show more births, alcoholic schoolmasters, the occasional abusive parent, and a schoolmistress who is human enough to lose patience and lose track of a 5-year-old while on a field trip.

I turned to Fairacre because I had already devoured all 12 Thrush Green books; I was seeking consolation. However, if Village School is any indication, I shall come to prefer it even to my own beloved Thrush Green. show less

Gentle but substantive autofiction about a small village in 1950s England, centering on the school. I enjoyed this immensely. Excellent little portraits of characters and illustrations of what daily life and especially primary school life was like. Contains the occasional phrase or word (there was a surprise n-word) that we would not use today, but generally all used casually and not deliberately malicious. I took them as part of the document as history and wasn't overly bothered, but YMMV.

This is the first of the Miss Read novels and although strictly speaking you don't _have_ to read them in order, this is a good one to start with. None others I've read so far have so much to do with the children, and in this we are given a good picture not only of the school itself and many of its students but of Miss Read's school house as well. Since we spend a lot of time in these places it's good to see them so clearly.

Lovely collection of anecdotes and reflections set in a term by term setting of the fifth year of Miss Read's career in Fairacre. We get to see both her kindly and her impatient sides more clearly than in some novels where her relationship with the children takes more of a back seat.

This is a reread for me and the book still draws me in to the nostalgia of life back in the 1950s. So warm, cosy and gentle…..I just love her books. This is how I remember school life back in those years. All of the characters evolve to make you feel as if you know them all and live in the village with them.

Beautifully observed tale of life centred around a 1950s English village. Miss Read is a wry and sophisticated social commentator whose gentle humour is never far away - 'She always spoke of "hubby" as though he were a hulking caveman and she a clinging little wisp dependent on him for everything. This "trembling-with-fear-at-his-frown" attitude was all the more absurd when one had seen "hubby", who stood five-foot-six in his dove-grey socks, had next to no chin and a pronounced lisp.' Superb.