A review by verityw
The Leader of the Lower School by Angela Brazil

2.0

Quite an odd book which fell into two distinct parts - the first is the story of a new girl arriving at a boarding school and shaking things up with her "colonial" ways - standing up for the younger children's rights against the prefects etc - and the second is a Little Princess-esque story of the same girl's problems when a letter from her father is mislaid and her fees aren't paid. I quite liked the first half - although Gipsy has a few too many outstanding qualities - but I really didn't like the second half - it felt mean and spiteful and just too much for a middle grade book. I couldn't understand why Gipsy would want to stay at the school at the end of it all - and why the girl's father wouldn't be taking her away from the head teacher who had been so mean to her.