Boys and school stories?

[Yak]

My (ten year old) nephew is reading the Adventure series right now but when he was here the other day he picked up Claudine at St Clare's and said, was this any good? And I nearly said 'oh it's about a girl's school .. you won't like it' and then I thought .. well, why should he not? I presume that a lot of the males here have at least read the SC and MT stories .. do you enjoy them as much as, for instance, the more Adventure bases series's?

I told him he was welcome to borrow my entire set when he gets done with Adventure but that it's best to start at the beginning.

[Petermax]

The only Blyton school stories that I read as a child were the Naughtiest Girl series. Seeing as Whyteleafe was a co-educational teaching establishment, I deemed the series to be suitable for my attention. Not so the Malory Towers or St Clares series, no way could I have abided an all female cast, it would have been absolutely unthinkable!

[Yak]

. I think that part of the appeal of the girl's schools for me was that I wanted to grow up and GO to them, to BE Claudine or Alicia or whomever. So yeah, maybe little boys can't identify so closely with them. Still, I hope that he will read and enjoy the books.

[Kitty]

Why not? I love boys public school stories myself. They are glorious fun!

[Yak]

I've was gonna say I'd never heard of boy's school stories but then I remembered Billy Bunter, though I've not read any of them

[Philip Mannering]

Hmm...I have read them but I'm not mad on them...no, certainly not. I enjoyed the Naughtiest Girl series much more than the other too. Overall, I prefer other series.

[Stephen]

Well I had done the Adventure and Mystery based stories first, so MT was something of a novelty to me when I first read the series, but I soon got into it. The fact they were all girls didn't bother me at all; most of the time I just thought of them as a broad spectrum of people rather than exclusively girls. For instance, I identified most with meek, mild, do-anything-for-a-quiet-life Mary-Lou, whilst secretly yearning to be bold-as-brass Alicia. Mary-Lou could have easily been me at school in girl-form - and the fact she WAS a girl didn't really come into it.

In fact, one of the reasons I didn't like the Naughtiest Girl books so much was possibly because the school WAS mixed. So I'd automatically identify with the boys - even though none were like me.

I think the only exclusively boys boarding school-connected fiction I've read is Lord of the Flies - and that's hardly the same thing, is it?

[Yak]

Well not really *grins*.

Strangely, although i liked Whyteleafe well enough, I never at all identified with it in the way that I did and do with MT and SC. Perhaps because the children were younger? I liked reading about much older girls, who seemed to be absolute grown ups to me, rather than children who were around my age or not very much older.

[Petermax]

I forgot to mention my liking for the Jennings books by Anthony Buckeridge, a series of 25 books published between 1950 and the early 1970's.

[Tony Summerfield]

Sorry to 'nitpick', but there were actually 24 Jennings books, and I know that this will surprise you - the last one was written in 1994!

[Yak]

I have not heard of them .. was the modern one written in an 'older' context still?

So, Tony, what did you think of the girl's school stories?

[Kitty]

Jennings is superb. Which was the story in which he recited a textbook chapter that he'd been forced to learn to the amazement of a school inspector? It made me cry with laughter.

[Lucky Star]

I rather guiltily and secretly read the Malory Towers books as a teenager. Unlike the other major series I only read them once. I know I enjoyed them and they must have made an impression on me as I still recall most of the major characters names if not their exploits. I have been meaning to re-read them for several months now but I dont own any so will have to hit ebay yet again.

[Yak]

Oh definitely do .. The SC ones too if you feel like it!

[Moonraker]

I was really surprised to hear that the last Jennings book was published in '94 - would have lost my money if that question had come up on Millionaire!

Another Blyton school story featuring boys and girls was Mischief at St Rollo's, although it was not part of a series.