Reading the Chalet School Series

After I finished reading the Betty Gordon series, I have been unable to get started reading another series. This is often my problem when I read a series that is unusually good. What I really want to read is at least part of the Chalet School series. I had read the first two books several months ago but stopped since I did not have the next several books. I decided a few days ago that I would not be happy until I could read more of the Chalet School books. I bought volumes 6 and 8 this week in fixed-price listings, even though the prices were a little higher than if I had waited for an eBay auction, just so that I would at least have all of the first 12 books. So now I'm going to read the first 12 books in order.

I am reading volumes 1 and 2 again to refresh my memory of all of the details. I am in the first chapter of volume 1, The School at the Chalet. This is how Jo Bettany is described on page 15:

Anything less like Madge and Dick it would have been hard to imagine. Her cropped black hair was so straight as almost to be described as lank, her big black eyes made the intense whiteness of her face even more startling than it need have been, and her cheeks and temples were hollow with continual ill-health. Like her brother and sister, she had been born in India; but, unlike them, had come home at the early age of seven months. The frail baby who had never known her mother or father had thriven in the soft Cornish air of their home till she was four years old. Then a neglected cold had brought on an attack of pleuro-pneumonia, from which she had barely struggled back to life. Since then, her health had been a constant worry to those who had charge of her. What made things still more difficult was the fact that Miss Joey possessed at least five times as much spirit as strength, and fretted continually at the restrictions they were obliged to enforce.

Jo Bettany is a spirited girl who is 12 years old at the beginning of the first book. Her sister, Madge, and her brother, Dick, are twins who are 24 years old. Madge and Dick are Jo's guardians. The Bettanys have nearly run out of money since their guardian, who recently died, left his affairs in a muddle. Madge gets the idea to open a school for girls in a chalet in Austria, and hopes to earn enough money in tuition to support Joey. Of course since this is the first volume in a 58 volume series, it is safe to assume that the school at the chalet will be a splendid success.