So many formats

I'm excited to be able to offer the Best Friends Forever books in PDF, .mobi, and even text-only formats, thanks to Smashwords. Find them here. Full URL is https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/CathyWattStories.

The series consists of four separate stories:

1. Louise and Melinda: They're new friends who try hard to stay out of trouble. But that's a struggle when people all around them need their help with extraordinary situations! Like Aunt Tabitha. She's such a drama queen... AND a terrible cook. Can the girls help her host a dinner party when it's being filmed for TV?
2. The Fabulous Witch Next Door: Ruby would love to have a friend, so she's excited when a new neighbour, Wendy, moves in. Wendy's a grown-up with special powers. It's not long before she tells Ruby that she could learn how to be a witch! But Ruby's always messing up her spells. Can she learn how to make her parents stop arguing? And what about magicking a friend her own age?
3. Megan & Janelle: Megan is very, very quiet. TOO quiet, really. But all that changes when an old lady called Joan comes into her life, and introduces her to a new friend, Janelle. Together they fight bullies, have fun... and help Joan to save the world.
4. Jo & Bruno: Joanna is horrified when she has to spend the holidays with her cousin Bruno. He used to be such a brat! But it turns out that he's quite nice, underneath his sulkiness. It's not easy for him, keeping an enormous secret - his parents are involved in hatching dinosaurs. He and Joanna need to keep quiet about the dinos, while saving them from greedy thieves.

The first Noel

Noel Streatfeild was a wonderful children's writer, most famous for her Shoes series - especially Ballet Shoes.

Remember the movie You've Got Mail, when Meg Ryan, playing book shop owner Kathleen, answers a customer's query about Streatfeild? She spells out her surname, which was the first time I was conscious that the "-field" part was actually "-feild".
 
 Here are 7 fascinating facts about this author:

- her first name was actually Mary; Noel was her second name
- she was expelled from her first school
- she made munitions during the First World War
- Ballet Shoes was an instant best-seller when it was published in 1936
- it's probably the first book that depicts children as self-reliant
- her editor suggested Ruth Gervis as the illustrator, not knowing that Ruth was Noel's sister
- she also wrote romance novels under the name Susan Scarlett

Although her books are less popular than they were, they still do well.

Much of the above was gleaned here and here, where you can find out more about Noel Streatfeild.