Unbelievably, it's somehow September, and time for a new school year again. It's many, many years since I started my last year of school, but I feel like marking the occasion, regardless. I don't have school-age kids, so I can't join in the parade of off-to-school photos on Facebook, and, thank God, I don't yet have to prepare rucksacks and book bags, name-label gym kit and fill lunchboxes. So, instead, it's time for a re-read of schoolday classics.
There are two series which I'm planning to revisit, both old favourites. First, Elinor M Brent-Dyer's Chalet School books. There are tons and tons of them, but I remember particularly loving Carola Storms the Chalet School. Because Carola does exactly what I wanted to do – sneaks off and joins the Chalet School, regardless of the fact that she's not a pupil. She wanted, like I did, kaffee und kuchen, snowy Tyrolean Alps and frozen lakes, and lots of plucky friends (in particular Joey Bettany, future authoress and pluckiest of them all).
It looks like I'm not the only one with an ancient crush on the Chalet School – there are fan clubs and newsletters about the adventures of the girls, and even a book about how to collect all the titles. This makes me happy. My ancient old paperbacks are long gone, but I'm thinking that a slow eBay mission to build a new Chalet School library might be a good way to spend these back-to-school days.
Val McDermid, incidentally, is another fan – take a look at this review of a radio programme she made, talking to fellow Chaletians. Rather brilliantly, the crime writer decided to give three 10-year-olds copies of The Chalet School in Exile to see what they'd make of it. "The value of their insight is debatable," writes our reviewer. "'If you're hiking up and down a mountain and running away from Nazis,' says one girl, asked what she's learned from the book, 'it might hurt your foot.' There's a pause and what sounds like a stifled laugh from our host. 'That's … very … true.' It's hardly rigorous literary criticism, but it is quite sweet."
I was also keen on – and look, I'm slipping into the lingo already – the Trebizon books by Anne Digby. Rebecca Mason, her tennis-loving heroine, has become, years after reading them, a sort of school-age Joan Hunter Dunn in my mind, complete with "strongly adorable tennis girl's hand". Fabulously, Rebecca's adventures with her friends Tish and Sue, and her "boy friend" Robbie, are all available on Kindle, so I can get started imminently.
Boarding school stories – there's nothing quite like them, is there? Sending the kids off to school immediately achieves that most important thing in children's literature: getting rid of the grown-ups. Starting with the Worst Witch, then Enid Blyton's St Clare's and Malory Towers – Gwendolyn Mary got a bit of a rum deal, didn't she, and did anyone else sample sardine and ginger cake in honour of a particularly odd midnight feast? – and continuing with Jennings and Derbyshire, I adored them all growing up, and am itching to get started on my nostalgic autumnal reading.
I'm going to add one more, before I ask you to tell me about your own favourites: Michelle Magorian's Back Home. Because the image of Rusty, the evacuee sent to America who can't fit in when she returns to England, sadly stencilling paint onto the walls of the abandoned cottage she finds outside her school, has stuck with me for years.
How about you?
