The Head Girl of the Chalet School (by Elinor M Brent-Dyer)

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In my slow re-reading of Elinor M Brent-Dyer’s ‘Chalet School’ series for teenagers, along with many other books, I have reached the fourth one she wrote: ‘The Head Girl of the Chalet School.’ It’s over ten years since I last read this book, and I had almost entirely forgotten what it was about.

It turns out that it’s not really a very memorable book at all. Grizel is the head girl of the title, and she’s quite an interesting character. She’s impetuous and strong-willed, and in the early chapters there’s quite an interesting episode when she becomes annoyed at something she is told she cannot do, and takes matters into her own hands.

I felt that Grizel, at 17, ought to have known better. She certainly shouldn’t have done what she did. One member of staff feels that she ought not to be head girl, but Madge, now married to Jem Russell, wants to give her another chance. Madge understands Grizel’s unhappy background and the battles she’s had with her stepmother. She also knows how unhappy she is about having to study music when she would far rather be a PE teacher.

So Grizel is given one more chance. And whatever her faults, she is honest and usually willing to admit her faults. She’s also quite determined, and decides that she will do her very best. She wants to give something to the school where she has been so happy for the past four years, and - unsurprisingly - she mostly succeeds.

But Grizel never quite becomes the central character, although she’s involved in almost every scene in the book. There’s a snow fight where another impetuous, hot-tempered girl loses her temper, and there’s a slightly surreal kidnapping, where Grizel and Joey manage to rescue the small victim.

But even a day after finishing it, it’s hard to recall much of what happens in the book. I just glanced at the chapter headings to see if they would remind me, and one of them is entitled, ‘nothing much’. That rather sums up the book, in my view. Not that it’s a bad book, but it feels as if it was written because the author needed a sequel to her first three rather than for any sense of story.

Worth reading as part of the series, but this would not be a good one to introduce someone to Brent-Dyer’s work, and it could easily be missed out when reading through.

Having said that, I just checked the review I wrote when I last read this, in 2009. Apparently I thoroughly enjoyed it then.

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