Dancing Shoes (by Noel Streatfeild)

Ever since my teenage years, Noel Streatfeild’s novels have been an important part of my comfort reading. I suppose I was about nine when I first came across some of them on my grandparents’ bookshelves. I acquired a few in my teens, and borrowed many more from libraries. In the past twenty years or so I have been gradually collecting them, and am thoroughly enjoying re-reading them again, in between others of my favourite authors, and some new books.

‘Dancing Shoes’ was originally entitled...