Ballet Shoes



Ballet Shoes is a young adult novel by Noel Streatfeild (not a typo). It is about three Happily Adopted girls living in 1930's England. Together they are being trained in dance, with varying degrees of success. It was made into a movie starring Emma Watson as the eldest sister Pauline.

The three girls are adopted as infants by a man they call Gum, short for Great Uncle Matthew. They are then left to be raised by Sylvia, their guardian, and Nana, their nursemaid. The family runs a boardinghouse, so the three girls meet many different people who live in the house.

"Nana: You're all three P. Fossil; one lot of marking tapes all through."
 * Acceptable Feminine Goals: Averted. Petrova aspires to be an engineer.
 * Added Alliterative Appeal: The three girls' names all start with a P.
 * Ambiguously Gay: Dr Jakes and Dr Smith are hinted to be lesbians and suspected to be so by many fans but neither the book nor the film elaborates. Note that they do rent two rooms at the boarding house.
 * Annoying Younger Sibling: Pauline and Petrova often feel like this towards Posy.
 * Bad Bad Acting: A variation. When Pauline is cast in a film and has to act a sad scene, to show her "inexperience" while filming she just doesn't put any effort into her line and has to be taught to put emotion in by the director.
 * Ballet: It's in the title!
 * Beauty, Brains, and Brawn Pauline is the beautiful one, Petrova is the smart one, and Posy, while not the stereotypical brawn, is a much better dancer than her sisters.
 * Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Pauline, Petrova, and Posy, respectively.
 * Brainy Brunette: Petrova is known as the clever child of the three.
 * Embarrassing First Name: When Posy is delivered to the house, her letter states that she was unfortunately named so...
 * The Film of the Book: Starring Emma Watson.
 * Happily Adopted
 * Impoverished Patrician Sylvia, sort of- she's consistently struggling financially but has 3 servants (okay, so for a long time she's only been paying two, the other being her own mother-surrogate), lives in a high-end district of London, and her teenaged daughters take paid work years before she does.
 * In-Series Nickname: The girls call Sylvia "Garnie".
 * Letting Her Hair Down: Sylvia.
 * Odd Name Out: Pauline and Petrova are named after Saints Paul and Peter, but Posy came to live with them already named.
 * Small Name, Big Ego: Pauline briefly when she becomes successful on stage. She quickly learns her lesson though.
 * Spell My Name With an "S" The author's last name completely defies the I before E except after C rule.
 * Stage Mom: Averted. Sylvia is glad when Pauline gets major roles, as that means there is more money flowing into the household, but she never exhibits any stage mom tendencies and loves the girls no matter how they dance.
 * Technician Versus Performer: Played with a bit. It's mentioned that Petrova, who hates dancing, ends up being one of the most technically proficient dancers in the school because she hates dancing, so she ends up taking basic classes year after year and gets all the core moves completely ground into her mind. But her performer sisters are the ones who always get major roles in ballets and plays, while she's always (gladly) stuck in the background. Although in this case, her sisters aren't bad at technique; they just never learn it by rote the way she does.
 * Petrova does have a leading role at one point, but that's because Pauline is portraying her brother, and it's more convenient to cast her as the sister.
 * Also comes into play (possibly) with all-round brilliant, plain Winifred vs. good-at-acting-but-merely-competent-at-the-rest, beautiful Pauline. Mostly it's observed that Winifred's not very attractive and looks shabby at auditions (because her family are flat broke and chaotic), but she also seems to lack Pauline's charisma.
 * Theme Naming Pauline, Petrova, and Posy Fossil.
 * Lampshaded by Nana:


 * Could also apply to all of Noel Streatfeild's works: Ballet Shoes, Tennis Shoes, Circus Shoes, Theater Shoes, Party Shoes, Movie Shoes, Skating Shoes, Family Shoes, Dancing Shoes, and Traveling Shoes. Whew!
 * Important to note that many of these titles were different when published in England and only became ___ Shoes when published in America.
 * Tomboy: Petrova is as close as can get to this in her time period.
 * Wrench Wench: Petrova, in exchange for being the worst dancer of the three, is this.