Dear Noel Streatfield,

I'm sorry to say that I really don't know you all that well, Miss Streatfield. Our acquaintance has been of a limited sort; you haven't been one of the author's who I have come to know extensively through biographies and such. As it happens, all I really know about you is that you have written the Shoes books, and I have read- but really, isn't that the usual connection between author and reader? The author writes, and the reader reads. Perhaps the reader becomes so enthralled in that person who has written a book that has become so beloved to them that they go searching for every book they can find about that person and their life. Perhaps the book is enjoyed for an hour, and then set away, and both author and book are forgotten.
I think the true test of a book though, is not the book that sends the reader running for ten others by that author. Or the book that has the reader finding biographies and searching for information on the Internet. It is the book that comes to the reader's mind when someone asks about "good books," years after that book has been read.
You're books are just that.
It has been years since I was about ten years old and reading Ballet Shoes for the very first time, but if a little girl of about ten-ish years were to come and ask me for a recommendations, I would think of Pauline, Petrova and Posy right away. It was only about a week or so ago when I was shelving books at the library that I came across a little hardback book with the title of Party Shoes, and I put it in my stack of books to take home with me because I remembered how much I loved the other Shoes books. I'm still going to read that other book of yours, actually, I just discovered what a quite a lot of books you have written that I haven't read yet. Isn't it such a nice thing to think how many books out there that are yet to be discovered and read? I hope I will never be without a stack of fifteen books to read, it would be such a waste of time when there are so many out there that there sometimes never seems enough time.
Perhaps someday I shall even find a biography about you, but for now, know that those books of yours that I have read I would recommend for everyone, no matter what their age. Know how much my ten year old self loved those books of yours, and how three of them still remain on my crammed bookshelf, though the books surrounding them have changed from American Girl and Boxcar Children books to Jane Austen and Elizabeth Gaskell. (Of course I still have my American Girl and Boxcar books, they're just being read by younger siblings now days.)
I'm trying to think which of the three was my favorite...I believe when I was younger it was Theater Shoes (For a while it was the book that convinced me that I wanted to be an actor) but the one I remember the best now is Ballet Shoes. Dancing Shoes is the third book that remains on my bookshelf and I love it as well. I hope when my baby sister gets old enough she will love them just as well as I always did.
Sincerely, Emily

My Nameless Little Friend

We were friends right from the beginning, she and I. She peered at me through a gap in the bookshelf, I put another book in it's place and smiled back at her. I pushed my cart of books through the shelves of fiction, finding at the end of them the same little round face; still peering at me from in-between the books.

"What are you doing?"

"Oh spying on you." She said casually. I knew then, of course, this little girl wasn't the round faced six year old she appeared to be. She was a spy. How misleading the short blond haircut and the ever so fancy princess gown! Why this little girl knew the art of shadowing someone, watching their every move from a safe distance, never to be seen- for the bookshelves hid her from sight of course!

We sat down amongst the board books. I shifted through them while the little girl perched on a stool and chattered away, secure in the knowledge of our fast friendship.

"And what do you think happened then?" She whispered and watched my expression expectantly.

I showed sufficient astonishment. "I don't know, tell me!"

"Why, I jumped of course! I stood up on that chair, put some flour on my head," (the flour was, she had already explained, fairy dust.) "I made my wish..."

"What did you wish for?" I broke in.

"A mermaid's lagoon, silly!"

"Oh yes, of course! How silly of me!"

"AND THEN I JUMPED!"  and to show me just how she had jumped in her story, she jumped again, this time from the little stool she had been sitting on.

"Did you fly?" I asked, open-mouthed.

"No," she sighed, "but maybe next time I will."

"Oh yes, I'm sure next time."

"That's what I thought." She looked smug and smoothed her dress.

I thought now was a fitting time to remark on the princess dress. "It is a lovely one." I said.

"I'm Cinderella." She nodded.

"I thought you were."

"Her hair was longer though."

"Short hair is nice for summer though. I always cut my hair that short during summer when I was your age."

"Oh yes. Short hair's better for exploring. Your head gets hot otherwise."

"Yes, there is that, and if you went to the desert just think how hot you would get then! You might faint!"

She grinned appreciatively at this. Yes, short hair was indeed better for exploring. We were agreed.

"My Mommy reads me lots of stories." She remarked, watching me alphabetize the picture books.

"What's your favorite?" I asked.

"Oh I like Peter." She said.

"Of course! Everyone loves Peter Pan!"

She ran across the room to get the coloring book and crayons from the table. On her dash back she stopped by her mother's side and listened to her conversing with the Children's Librarian.

"I like that movie!" She suddenly chirped up. "I want to lie down in a boat and be dead. They read a poem."

I couldn't help beaming at her across the room at this. I wanted to suddenly cry out "There she weaves by night and day, a magic web with colours gay, she has heard a whisper say, a curse is on her if she stay, to look down on Camelot!" Certainly, this little girl was quickly becoming my favorite person that I had ever met at the library.

She was back at my side again, I was going through non-fiction books that needed to be re-shelved. "Winnie the Pooh's my favorite!"

"Winne the Pooh's my favorite too!"

She bounced on her knees and started singing to me "Winne the Pooh, Winnie the Pooh, Winnie Nilly silly old bear, he's Winnie the Pooh, Winnie the Pooh!"

Even the best of things must come to an end at some time. I was pushing my cart of books in the direction of the adult fiction. "Bye!" I waved back to her as she turned and waved with one hand, while holding her mother's with the other.

"See you soon, friend!" She called to me, and then turning to her mother she said confidingly "I made a new friend today. She's nice."

We were the best of friends, she and I, my little nameless friend. Perhaps because she reminded me of the little girl I was, not so long ago. We loved books, we loved adventures, we bounced about in dresses and would always wear our hair in short little blond 'bobs.'

She smiled at me through the bookshelves, and we were kindred spirits.