I have always loved Noel Streatfeild's books and as a child I got my library to ILL them for me or hunted through second hand book stores to find all of them. She tells the perfect "girls stories". I was always able to find one character in each book that was my favorite. They definitely stand up to re-reads. ( )

This book is second in the 'Gemma' series for children, and starts the morning after the previous book closes. It follows the progress of the singing/dancing group 'Gemma and Sisters', featuring four cousins and one or two friends.

The book also focuses on the family and their day to day life, as the parents raise their three very different children and provide a home for their niece Gemma. Lydia, the middle cousin, learns a difficult lesson in this book, and there are some quite moving sections when her future career hangs in the balance.

Other than some confusing chronology (we seem to move from Christmas back to early December...) it’s a pleasant book and great comfort/nostalgia reading There's not really much plot, and ends are tied up perhaps a bit too neatly, but what matters is the characterisation and development, which Noel Streatfeild manages expertly.

Fluently reading girls of about eight or nine and upwards would probably like this, and of course their parents and other relatives who first read it in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

It’s not necessary to have read the first in the series, simply titled, ‘Gemma’, before this one; but it helps with the continuity.

Longer review here: https://suesbookreviews.blogspot.com/2024/03/gemma-and-sisters-by-noel-streatfei... ( )