Friday, March 7, 2008

ballet shoes


One of my favorite movies is "You've Got Mail." I know it's a rather typical girly movie, but I'm not even going to classify it as a guilty pleasure, I just really like it.

In one of the best parts Meg Ryan's character, Kathleen Kelly, goes into the children's section of the chain store that's putting her independant children's bookstore out of business. She just sits and looks around, quite sadly. Then, she over hears a conversation between a customer and a rather unknowledgable sales man.

Woman - "Excuse me, do you have The Shoe Books?"
Sales man - "The Shoe Books, who's the author?"
Woman - "I don't know, my friend told me my daughter had to read The Shoe Books, so here I am."
Kathleen - "Noel Streatfeild. Noel Streatfeild wrote Ballet Shoes, Theater Shoes, Skating Shoes, and Dancing Shoes. I'd start with Skating Shoes, it's my favorite. Although Ballet Shoes is completely wonderful, but it's out of print."
(She's fighting back tears by this point.)

Anyway, there's more to the scene, but you get the point (one of them being I've seen this movie a lot). And my point is that working at the OxFam shop this week I found a copy of Ballet Shoes! I had never heard of the books outside of the movie, didn't even know they were real. But apparently they're classics in British children's literature. I'm so excited!

2 comments:

amyblythe said...

I haven't read them all bur ballet shoes is one of my all time favorites!! ahh so excited you get to read it :)

Jonathan said...

That's neat. I'm glad you found a cool book. I found one in St. Andrews when I visited there the first time - a beautiful leather bound ornately embossed copy of George Herbert's The Church. It is still probably my favorite treasure!