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Boarding School Books
Jun. 12th, 2009 08:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smallfuzzyHere from a link on fandom-lounge after asking about Chalet School fic!
When I was a wee thing, I went through a stage where I was school story nuts. I went through them like chocolate bars, picked them up at car boot sales, and revelled in the feeling of reading things which probably had very little educational content. How obsessed was I? My first hamster was named Joey after the Chalet School.
And then I grew up, handed them off to the kid sister and forgot about them. But the "kid sister" has also grown up, finished Uni, and moved back into Mum's while studying Law. I think it was while helping her shift stuff that I stood on her bed, and discovered on the shelf above her thick heavy law books, way above my head... a treasure trove. All the school stories I'd assumed thrown out, hidden there so Mum would not quietly tidy them away.
So, I've been racing through our Chalet School books every time I was home for a weekend, reading at the speed of light. And now I have two questions!
1) Does anyone have any decent fic recs? I've been pointed at a couple of communities, but specific recs for Good Stuff are always welcome. I'd particularly like some Juliet at college fic. I feel certain this must exist somewhere.
2) After I mentioned Chalet School, people started mentioning other things I'd forgotten being in love with, like Mallory Towers, and St Clares', The Naughtiest Girl in the School and the only faintly-remembered Trebizon.
And my brain helpfully supplied other things I'd forgotten associating with the boarding school genre, like A Little Princess, Little Men, even Billy Bunter. (My boarding school reading phase appears to have been a little more obsessive and eclectic than I remembered.)
So, I ask this tentatively, in a my-god-what-am-I-thinking? way, would anyone be up for a school stories fic exchange? It wouldn't be to start for at least a month yet, but I'm vaguely conscious that I'd need at least that time to a) gather the various schools into a list, and b) give a sign-in period anyway. I'm thinking to do hand-in at the beginning of September, just because it feels completely appropriate to hand in school stories at the end of the summer holidays.
(I am in two minds about whether to include more modern series such as The Babysitters' Club and Sweet Valley High in this. On the one hand they're not boarding schools, on the other I can't help thinking they're the modern day Chalet School equivalent.)
Would anyone be interested, or should I stop finding excuses to read my kid sister's book collection?
ETA: and it is done! Feel free to join and spread the word about.
When I was a wee thing, I went through a stage where I was school story nuts. I went through them like chocolate bars, picked them up at car boot sales, and revelled in the feeling of reading things which probably had very little educational content. How obsessed was I? My first hamster was named Joey after the Chalet School.
And then I grew up, handed them off to the kid sister and forgot about them. But the "kid sister" has also grown up, finished Uni, and moved back into Mum's while studying Law. I think it was while helping her shift stuff that I stood on her bed, and discovered on the shelf above her thick heavy law books, way above my head... a treasure trove. All the school stories I'd assumed thrown out, hidden there so Mum would not quietly tidy them away.
So, I've been racing through our Chalet School books every time I was home for a weekend, reading at the speed of light. And now I have two questions!
1) Does anyone have any decent fic recs? I've been pointed at a couple of communities, but specific recs for Good Stuff are always welcome. I'd particularly like some Juliet at college fic. I feel certain this must exist somewhere.
2) After I mentioned Chalet School, people started mentioning other things I'd forgotten being in love with, like Mallory Towers, and St Clares', The Naughtiest Girl in the School and the only faintly-remembered Trebizon.
And my brain helpfully supplied other things I'd forgotten associating with the boarding school genre, like A Little Princess, Little Men, even Billy Bunter. (My boarding school reading phase appears to have been a little more obsessive and eclectic than I remembered.)
So, I ask this tentatively, in a my-god-what-am-I-thinking? way, would anyone be up for a school stories fic exchange? It wouldn't be to start for at least a month yet, but I'm vaguely conscious that I'd need at least that time to a) gather the various schools into a list, and b) give a sign-in period anyway. I'm thinking to do hand-in at the beginning of September, just because it feels completely appropriate to hand in school stories at the end of the summer holidays.
(I am in two minds about whether to include more modern series such as The Babysitters' Club and Sweet Valley High in this. On the one hand they're not boarding schools, on the other I can't help thinking they're the modern day Chalet School equivalent.)
Would anyone be interested, or should I stop finding excuses to read my kid sister's book collection?
ETA: and it is done! Feel free to join and spread the word about.