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#1: Books: The Chalet School and Robin Author: jennifer, Location: Taiwan

Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2007 3:51 am
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This book is a fill-in by Caroline German, set between The Chalet School Goes to It and Highland Twins, in the term after Goes to It.

Robin is sixteen, and unexpectedly becomes head girl when Cornelia doesn't return.

The main plot lines involve the cooling friendship between Betty and Elizabeth, culminating in Betty getting Elizabeth in trouble for various misdemeanors. Robin steps in to help Betty, but it's too late for the friendship to be repared. Meanwhile, Jocelyn is upset because she wasn't made games prefect (she wants to be a Games prefect, but her parents aren't keen), which culminates in her running off. Robin steps in and helps her regain her equilibrium. Margot is seriously ill with influenza and we see the start of her continued delicacy.

Various plot details are filled in - Robin and the Venables become boarders, Hilary Burn joins the staff, Miss Edwards and Mlle Berne rejoin the staff, and Miss Slater joins, having some difficulty dealing with the CS way of doing things. German days are dropped, and the headgirl's study introduced. We also have the Christmas pageant, some entertainments from the middles (nursery rhyme mimes), a view of some of the classes, an introduction to the new juniors, the third formers doing midnight acting, and the inclusion of the short story "The Triumvirate go skiing"

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What do you think of this fill-in? Does it feel like an EBD book, or something different? Some of the plot lines fill in details referred to in other books, particularly Betty and Elizabeth's growing apart, and Robin taking up new responsibilities while Joey is distracted and unable to offer advice. Is this well done? How about the explanations/work arounds for various EBDisms between books?

What do you think of the portrayal of Joey when Margot becomes ill, and her reactions and way of coping?

Any other comments or discussions?

#2: Author: Alison H, Location: Manchester

Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2007 7:56 am
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This one's definitely my favourite of the fill-ins I've read. Robin is a lovely character once she's in her teens and it's a great shame that she disappears from the series so early on, so it's good to see more about her; and I like the style of the book as well. Thank you, Caroline!

#3: Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland

Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2007 12:09 pm
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I think this book very much has the feel of an early Chalet book, so I like reading it to soak in that atmosphere. The inclusion of the short story as a chapter was genius, and the join on either side is pretty seamless too.

It's really great to have a book that deals with Robin as a person. She is mostly such a shady character in the EBD-written books - existing first as an angel-child, then as an absent nun. All her growing up was done in the war period and is only barely described by EBD in Exile and Goes to It. She could have been a harder character to describe and deal with, but I'm glad that Caroline took on the challenge.

#4: Author: CBW, Location: Kent

Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2007 5:54 pm
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I've never really understoon why Robin wasn't used more. Once she'd got past her too good to live childhood it looked like she might develop and then suddenly she was gone. It seemed such a waste.

#5: Author: Pado, Location: Connecticut, USA

Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2007 1:33 am
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I really liked this one. Robin seemed very real - much more so than EBD's one dimensional angel child in the later Tyrol books. For me, Caroline filled in a lot of the gaps in the war years books.

#6: Author: jennifer, Location: Taiwan

Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 2:33 am
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Of the fill-ins I've read this is one of my favourites. It keeps a nicely Chalet-style tone, and does a good job of filling in gaps in the series - a lot of the wartime changes, and Robin as headgirl.

I think EBD had trouble writing Robin as a real character. In the early books she's more of a Victorian ideal than a well rounded character, while in the later books she's a distant, also idealized nun figure. Robin as a normal schoolgirl, with a personality and good and bad traits, is not seen very much, and this book does a good job of showing her as a headgirl with doubts and problems.

My one problem with the books is that I think there is too much plot and too many characters in it. We have separate plot lines that follow the prefects, the fifth form (Betty and Elizabeth), the fourth (the Triumvirate) the third (midnight acting), the juniors, and Joey and Margot, while most of the books will focus on one primary group of girls and one secondary for the plot lines (for example, Lavender focuses on Bride's class, with a secondary plot involving the seniors and Lois and Jesanne). In addition, the author obviously did meticulous research about which character should be what age at this point, but one result was that there are a lot of characters featured here who don't show up for the first time in the series until many books later.

#7: Author: Fiona Mc, Location: Bendigo, Australia

Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 3:41 am
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This was one of the first filler ins that I read and I love the way she developed Robin and continued with the Betty and Liz breakup; I thought both were developed and written well. I thought Caroline's second filler-in flowed better but didn't always agree with how she developed certain characters (mainly Evadne). I thought the atmosphere of the book was very EBD. I also like the conversation between Sybil and Robin, giving a glimpse of Sybil's first stormy term

#8: Author: Elbee, Location: Surrey

Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 8:58 am
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jennifer wrote:

My one problem with the books is that I think there is too much plot and too many characters in it. We have separate plot lines that follow the prefects, the fifth form (Betty and Elizabeth), the fourth (the Triumvirate) the third (midnight acting), the juniors, and Joey and Margot, while most of the books will focus on one primary group of girls and one secondary for the plot lines

I actually didn't mind this, I found it made the book more interesting. I often feel frustrated, especially with the later Swiss books, that the plots focus on too few people (ie usually Len Maynard Rolling Eyes

). This is one of my favourite fill-ins, partly because it is set in one of my favourite CS periods, ie during War and at Plas Howell. I too enjoyed seeing Robin developed as a real character. I think it is very EBD in style.

#9: Author: Caroline, Location: Manchester

Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2007 10:43 am
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Thanks, everyone - and apologies for being rather slow to appear on this thread. I haven't been on the CBB at all this week, and had completely forgotten Robin was due for discussion.

So, I'm thrilled so many of you enjoyed the book. I now think, personally, that it reads as a little light compared to Juliet, but that might be something to do with it being quite a lot shorter, or maybe it's that natural writer thing where, as you develop and change, things you wrote five years ago seem a bit pants compared to what you are writing now. Or something. Not that I think Robin is pants or anything... Very Happy

Jennifer wrote:

That's a very fair comment, there are quite a lot of plot strands compared to some of the books. I would say, though, that that was partly motivated by my wanting to confront Robin with lots of different things to resolve - I wanted it to be a book about Robin and how she learned to grapple with the various things the term threw at her -all the while contrasting her attempts to deal with being in charge with the attempts of Miss Slater. Point being that Rob learned from her mistakes and grew into the role, whereas (nudge, wink to the fans) we know that Slater eventually failed - she could never quite step up to the mark.

I would also say, though, that having that many plot strands encompassing different ages is perhaps more typical of the Tyrol books, and those are my favourites and my templates for "the EBD style", whatever that is. Some of the things you list, Jennifer, I would more categorise as "comedy relief" chapters interspersed through the plot, rather than plot strands in their own right. And EBD does this a lot in the early books: big crisis chapter - oh, it's the Quintette doing something daft chapter - resolution of big crisis from before chapter.

And finally I would add that, having re-read Robin and read some of the other fill ins, having a number of standalone plotlines was something I really tried to avoid with Juliet. Thus, even though there are still plenty of things going on, it's all much more interwoven (I hope!). Which was such a nightmare when it came to editing, as removing the smallest thing had hideous and convoluted knock on effects Rolling Eyes

Any questions about the book, just ask. And again, thanks for the kind words. You're all lovely.

#10: Author: leahbelle, Location: Kilmarnock

Posted: Fri Dec 14, 2007 5:14 pm
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This is one of my favourite fill-ins. I think it was the first one I read, so it kind of set the scene for the ones I read afterwards and it still rates at the top of my list. I loved reading more about Robin. Like everyone else has said, it's such a shame that EBD didn't use her more once she'd grown up and let us see her developing as an adult. It was great to see Robin as a real school girl, rather than the somewhat annoyingly perfect small child EBD allowed her to become and I thought the characterisation was spot on.

I'm in the middle of a read through at the moment, and Robin is the next but one book and I'm looking forward to rediscovering it.

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