The Painted Garden is a children's novel by British author Noel Streatfeild

Noel Streatfeild

Mary Noel Streatfeild OBE , known as Noel Streatfeild, was an author, most famous for her children's books including Ballet Shoes . Several of her novels have been adapted for film or television.-Biography:...

. It was first published in serial form in 1948, and as a book (subtitled The Story of a Holiday in Hollywood) in 1949. The abridged US edition was entitled Movie Shoes. The novel is now out of print, the most recent publication being the 2000 Collins paperback.

Plot summary

Crabby Jane Winter is furious when her family plans to spend the winter in California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

, leaving her dog in London. However, her father really needs a holiday to get over his writer's block

Writer's block

Writer's block is a condition, primarily associated with writing as a profession, in which an author loses the ability to produce new work. The condition varies widely in intensity. It can be trivial, a temporary difficulty in dealing with the task at hand. At the other extreme, some "blocked"...

. In California, Jane meets a movie producer who realises that her disposition makes her perfect to play Mary in a film version of The Secret Garden

The Secret Garden

The Secret Garden is a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It was initially published in serial format starting in the autumn of 1910, and was first published in its entirety in 1911. It is now one of Burnett's most popular novels, and is considered to be a classic of English children's...

. The novel shows the process of filmmaking

Filmmaking

Filmmaking is the process of making a film, from an initial story, idea, or commission, through scriptwriting, casting, shooting, directing, editing, and screening the finished product before an audience that may result in a theatrical release or television program...

 from a child actor

Child actor

The term child actor or child actress is generally applied to a child acting in motion pictures or television, but also to an adult who began his or her acting career as a child; to avoid confusion, the latter is also called a former child actor...

's perspective.

Background

Noel Streatfeild visited America in 1947, travelling by sea to New York, then overland to California, as the Winters did in the novel. She visited film studios in Hollywood, and spent several weeks observing the making of The Secret Garden

The Secret Garden (1949 film)

The Secret Garden is a 1949 US drama film. It is the second screen adaptation of the classic 1909 novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett . The screenplay by Robert Ardrey was directed by Fred M. Wilcox...

, paying particular attention to the child stars Margaret O'Brien

Margaret O'Brien

Margaret O'Brien is an American film and stage actress. Although her film career as a leading character was brief, she was one of the most popular child actors in cinema history...

, Dean Stockwell

Dean Stockwell

Dean Stockwell is an American actor of film and television, with a career spanning over 65 years. As a child actor under contract to MGM he first came to the public's attention in films such as Anchors Aweigh and The Green Years; as a young adult he played a lead role in the 1957 Broadway and...

 and Brian Roper.

Publication history

The novel first appeared in 1948 in Collins Magazine for Boys & Girls, with illustrations by Marcia Lane Foster, and the serial was republished in Collins Magazine Annual for Boys & Girls in 1953. The novel was published as a hardback book in 1949, illustrated by Ley Kenyon. An abridged version illustrated by Susanne Suba was published in the US by Random House also in 1949, under the title Movie Shoes. The first UK paperback edition was published in 1961, somewhat revised and with illustrations by Shirley Hughes

Shirley Hughes

Shirley Hughes is an English author and illustrator. She has written more than fifty books which have sold more than 11.5 million copies, and illustrated over two hundred. She currently lives in London....

.