Merry Christmas Everyone! This year’s Backlisted Christmas special celebrates Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild, a classic of children’s literature and the childhood favourite of our producer, Nicky Birch. We are joined by the writer Una McCormack and Tanya Kirk, the Lead Curator of Printed Heritage Collections (1601-1900) at the British Library, who are both lifetime Streatfeild fans. Ballet Shoes was an immediate bestseller upon publication and the runner-up for the inaugural Carnegie Medal. It has never been out of print and was the first in a series of ‘Shoes’ books by Streatfeild. It has been adapted many times both as an audiobook and for film and television and in 2019 BBC News included Ballet Shoes on its list of the 100 most influential novels of all time. We discuss why this might be the case and much more besides and even hear from Miss Streatfeild herself. And it being a Christmas episode, there is a fiendish festive quiz. 

We also feature two other classic books by writers best known through their writing for children. John discusses The Giant under the Snow by John Gordon, an eerie Puffin classic from 1968, while Andy revels in the darkness of John Christopher’s The Death of Grass, first published in 1956, a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel, definitely written for adults and perfect for cutting through your post-lunch torpor. Enjoy!

Books mentioned:
Noel Streatfeild - Ballet Shoes; A Vicarage Family
Anglea Bull – Noel Streatfeild: A Biography   Also available via Internet Archive
John Gordon – The Giant under the Snow
John Christopher – The Death of Grass (introduction by Robert Macfarlane)
Tanya Kirk (ed) - Haunters at the Hearth: Eerie Tales for Christmas
Una McCormack - The Autobiography of Mr Spock
Tove Jansson – Comet in Moominland
Terry Jones – Erick the Viking

Other links:
Noel Streatfeild on Desert Island Discs (1976)
Useful Noel Streatfeild resource site