What do You think about Playing Beatie Bow (2001)?
I still love this book (it has been my fourth time now). Abigail is a kind of anti-heroine, but her personality is interestingly multi-faceted, Beatie and the rest of the Bow Family are so entertainingly vivid and Abigail's time-travel-experience is believably painted in loving detail (up to the accent of the Scottish immigrants and their Glasgow Marble patterned woolen stockings).There is no denying that the ending is cotton candy pink; it successfully underlines the two - disputable - messages the author is trying to shout in our direction: a) Real love on first sight exists b) The ability to love deeply and truly is not connected to age or experience.30 years old and recommended!
—oliviasbooks
Abby Kirk, flat-chested lonely unsociable 14, "raged and sulked" p 23 when mother Jan 36 wants to rejoin unfaithful husband in Norway "love is a thing you have to experience before you know how powerful it can be" p 19. Abby "dumbstruck" p 163 repeats mother's advice. If theme is 'power of love' (cue music "and now the violins" p 26), vanquishes time, why is title about career-driven spinster?Emphasis on working-class lifestyle history, geography, child grows up, same as https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7.... Pretty turns of phrase. May appeal to teen wanting to grow up. 1*? Despite talented pleasing style and holiday in past, unasked-for lessons provoke anger, feeling of being cheated. Love is puzzling emotion, but doubtfully hormone dose that transforms child to adult without physical intrusion, just pulse thudding (yet more convincing than Queen's intervention for pharaoh's tomb goblet). Uneasy sense of checklist for awards judges / curriculum educators. Subject of niche-group audience age 'loves', grows up (finds 'real' love when 'old' 19?). Lessons: geography - streets, landmarks; history - diet, costumes, occupations (jobs, pastimes), politics, economy, customs, immigrants. Senses: sewage stink, street clamor, colors and feel of upper-class vs working-class dress (bright silks, soft furs, vs drab, scratchy homespun). Author clever to note only high-class fancy colorful outfits survive, confusing modern collector. Victorian way of life seems authentic, break from typical aristocratic romance. Along lines of born in poverty author Catherine Cookson who lived lives she wrote https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... Neighbor Natalie Bow 4, persecuted by brother Vincent 6 dubs watcher fascinated with playground game "furry girl" for hair very short, like fur on animal. Children chant observer's name in rhyme, fearful when another under sheet advances menacingly. Beatie 11 speeds away when Abby chases "to talk" into alley .. and smelly streets of horses and beggars. Running after and frightening smaller child 'to talk' makes no sense. Beatrice Bow's family unselfishly shelters, feeds, clothes and nurses penniless useless injured 'Stranger'. Gran from Scottish Orkney Isles has foretold - one die, one barren, and Stranger save family Gift of Prophecy, seeing, and traveling, future. After wrong houses, odd dialect, long dresses, gas lamps, wood fires, Queen Victoria portraits, many hints, Abby finally asks the year - 1873 p 45. Why does she take so long to clue in? She is an angry, mean, selfish, prideful, pampered, thoughtless, brainless brat, nasty for all four years since landmark skyscraper architect "fell in love with" p 19 much younger secretary Jan, and left marriage of 12 years p 19. Kid pouts oh-so sorry for herself. Chamber pot - Dovey who limps from childhood injury carries, empties and cleans dish; odor from clothes and bodies - little fresh water, hard to wash; scratchy clothing layers - others' best or bought special. Author picks on younger brothers yet has them grow up good; invalid Gibby whines for attention - after his fever, all believe he is one predicted to die by Gran. (view spoiler)[ Again Abby tears blindly, this time away from Beatie, down strange alleys and into trouble, caught for madam, whose own neice is a drunk diseased ruin at 21, set to guard the newcomer. She does wiggle out of bindings and window. Judah and pals drop ropes and lead fugitive across rooftops. (hide spoiler)]
—An Odd1
At first i thought this would be a pretty lame book, because i had to read it for school, and so far i haven't encountered a good book when it came to my english teacher and her lame choices. And maybe partly because it was written even before i was born in 1980. But i found that i actually enjoyed it.Ruth Park did a good job on this book, she wrote it well and really did her research on what life was like for poor people in Sydney in 1800's. Even right down to the way they spoke. It seemed like it really was 1873 and not something the author just made up off the top of her head.
—Hannah
