The Chalet School books

I have about forty of them! I loved them as a girl and found the idea of a boarding school in the Alps very exciting. The description of the cakes used to make my mouth water. The author Val Mcdermid is another fan

Yes! I was a big fan and used to get them from the library.

I didn't realise there were so many Grandmabatty . Google tells me that there were 64 published between 1925 and 1970 so I barely skimmed the surface as I probably stopped reading them in the 1950s.

I loved those books and borrowed them from the library in order if I could. That might be where I first heard of continental quilts?

How i loved these books!! Off to the library i would trot, to haul as many back as i could carry. I loved the characters, the girls portrayed seemed so friendly.
I was raised in a very poor, noisy busy household, we had nothing, barely enough food or clothes to go round. So the escapism in these books was wonderful. Did I ever imagine I would go to a finishing school in Switzerland? I must have thought anything was possible back then, 50 years ago. Ah life, where have you gone, so quickly and fleetingly?
Its so lovely that some of you know these books and have read them. I ask friends and colleagues, and nobody has heard of them. I thought they were better than anything Enid Blyton did, although to be fair, her age range was much younger. I may re-read some of them, do you think that's a good idea? Let me know, lovely ladies

They were some of my favourite books, in the early 1960's the setting, Switzeland, seemed such an exotic faraway place. As for a finishing school, a girl from a coal mining town in the East Midlands could not begin to comprehend the lives that the Chalet School girls were living.

It sounds a lovely idea rereading them if you can find them. I've never noticed them in charity shops.

I loved them and read and reread them. I still have quite a few as kept them for my daughters. My eldest daughter loved them as much as me .

I've bought them via Amazon over the last few years. Some are very expensive, others not too bad

Yes, I loved them, and Malory Towers.

I've just googled them and remember so many of the names especially Jo.

My favourite one is The Chalet School in Exile

The reason you seldom find them in charity shops is that they tend to be snapped up. They have quite a cult following. There is a specialist publishing company, Girls Gone By, which is gradually republishing the titles, including bits which have been cut out of them by paperback editions over the years. They do so in quite an academic way, examining and correcting errors in the original editions! They include covers and illustrations from previous editions.
I loved the books as a child, and enjoy re-reading them now. They are an insight into the world of the early 20th century, with charmingly old-fashioned approaches to manners and speech, management of illness and healthy living, and fashions. The messages of attitudes for young girls were good, I think. No television, computers or mobile phones of course. A lot of emphasis on working hard at school subjects , but plenty of making your own fun. They had an element of history, in the schools reaction to World War 2. The settings, in Austria, Switzerland and also Guernsey and West Wales, were charming
Sadly, my daughter didn't share my love of the books, of which I have amassed a couple of bookshelves-full, having read them as a child from the library like fairfraise. Who knows, I might have a granddaughter to read them to one day! Boys didn't figure much, except as the children and brothers of the main characters - and the eventual husbands, who were all, it seemed, terribly important professionals!!

I had most of them , but DD3 took them all , they were my favourite books at a time

Thanks for all that information, OOfy, thats really interesting. I am going to see if i can source them from somewhere. Ah, nostalgia, ever present and lurking in my mind somewhere

I loved the Chalet School books.

As an adult, I went on to Agatha Christie's detective fiction. I think I must be the sort of person who likes to read books which figure some of the same characters again and again.

I also enjoyed anything by Enid Blyton when I was a child.

I also loved these books. I had loads of them but sadly got rid of them when we were first married. Recently however I have been buying them from Ebay, and have enjoyed rereading them.

I was given Changes For The Chalet School when I was about 10, and am ashamed to say I never read it, didn’t fancy it somehow.

After reading this, I shall retrieve it from the loft and get it read, 55 odd years late!

I loved these stories as well as Malory Towers and St Clares. Boarding school sounded so exciting, especially when you lived with three younger brothers in a house with very little money. It was total escapism for me in the late 50's, early 60's.

Yes I too loved chalet school books. Couldn't wait to get from the library. An escapism from our dreary post world war at that time.
Just to go off the thread for a moment, did anyone else liked the books by malcolm Saville called the lone pine series? I joined the club that was offered through reading those books years ago

Hi polomint, i haven't heard of Lone Pine series, were they american, and what were they about?. What adult books did peops go on to read? I am always looking for recommendations, start so many books that are a real disappointment, and have to give up on them!!

I adored the Chalet School series. I remember the thrill of taking my pocket money to the local bookshop and choosing a new one. the multi-national characters and the romance of the situation of the girls' school moving during the war, and surviving nevertheless held my interest somewhere between my Enid Blyton period and my teens when I 'graduated' to Georgette Heyer, Agatha Christie and, ultimately, Jane Austen.

Chalet school in exile , no 14, was my all time favourite, as someone else has said pure escapism and comfort reads time and time again, the thrill of finding one you hadnt read at the lubrary and not being able to contain your excitement to get home and start reading it, I too got rid of mine when I married, I also liked the Lone pine series, and also Nancy Drew, and the Bobbsey Twins , which where American, has any one else heard if them or read the series?

I remember the Bobbsey twins! I remember reading about the family ‘station wagon’ - I was quite disappointed to find out later that just meant an estate car! I also loved the Chalet School series, I just devoured books then. My absolute favourite Christmas or birthday present was always book tokens. A 10s token meant I could buy 4 Armada paperbacks (anyone remember them?)

My favourite gift even now is a book for christmas, the feel and the smell and the antucipation of what escapism lay within.