I am not usually a fan of time switch stories but of course our award winning Australian author Ruth Park (1917-2010) does this SO well. Her idea of having a small dog move to the 'wrong' time is a brilliant story device which gives the plot momentum creating an urgency for Eliza (who lives in our time zone) to find a way back to Bethie who is living next door in 1914.
Eliza and her sister Paulina have moved to a new house in the Sydney suburb of Manly. The house is one hundred years old with a large garden. Next door there is a block of neglected holiday units and a very unfriendly man who owns the building. Exploring under their house, a place they have been forbidden to visit, Eliza finds a large old key. The sisters try to fit the key into various doors but with out success and then one evening the timber fence beside the house changes.
"Behind her was no fence at all, but a high, stone wall that bordered the street. A rose waved a long feeler over the top, and she saw a tall camellia tree with dark pink flowers beside the slate roof of the cottage. What cottage? Where was the block of flats owns by the cranky old man?"
Eliza hears a dog barking on the other side and then she discovers her key opens a door in the wall. Stepping through she meet Bethie and her small dog. She also meets Bethie's nasty brother Matty. When she flees back through the door little Tot follows her. Mum and Dad have said no pets. They don't have extra money right now after buying the house. Eliza needs to return Tot but when will the fence become a wall again?
"The enclosing stone wall looked as if it had been chipped out by convict stone masons in the long ago. Fishbone ferns and nasturtiums tumbled down the crevices. Once the wall had stretched across the bottom of the garden as well. Anyone could see that. But now there was a paling fence topped with spiteful barbed wire."
"All at once she heard horse ambling along Addison Road. There was a quavering hoot from an old, old car. And a stream whistle as the Manly ferry drew away from the jetty."
I love the line drawings in this book by the late Noela Young. She illustrated another famous Ruth Park book - The Muddle-headed wombat. Ruth Park is the author of another famous Australian historical fiction title - Playing Beatie Bow (for readers aged 14+).
The other strength of this book comes from the very rich vocabulary. Ruth Park is not writing down to her younger audience even though this book only has 71 pages.
Here are some examples:
- disdainful
- leprous
- swineherd
- joists
- thunderstruck
- antiquated
I also love the character descriptions:
"Elizabeth was always called Eliza. She had a cheerful face and eyes like blue crystals. Her fairish hair was nibbled short. She nearly always went barefooted."
"Right in front of them was a little girl in a brown pinafore, an astonished look on her face and a skipping rope in her hand."
The only really dated reference comes when Paulina and her friend use a cassette player for some dance music. I guess we don't use the term shortie pyjamas but a modern reader could easily guess the meaning. This book was first published in 1983 and so it has long been out of print. The copy I borrowed from a library is now quite yellowed and stained so I guess it will now be weeded. The small font, purple cover (different from the one above) and the old-fashioned looking girl on the cover most certainly mean this book will just continue to languish on the library shelves. It was last borrowed over a decade ago.
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