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Playing Beatie Bow

Playing Beatie Bow 2

by Ruth Park
Paperback
Age range: 8+ years old Publication Date: 31/01/1982
4/5 Rating 2 Reviews

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RRP  $16.99

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$15.75

A thrilling adventure story for children and young adults by Ruth Park, Playing Beatie Bow follows Abigail as she is swept back to the Sydney of a hundred years ago by a scary game.

ISBN:
9780140314601
9780140314601
Category:
General fiction (Children's / Teenage)
Age range:
8+ years old
Format:
Paperback
Publication Date:
31-01-1982
Publisher:
PENGUIN BOOKS AUSTRALIA
Country of origin:
Australia
Pages:
208
Dimensions (mm):
210x171x12mm
Weight:
0.15kg
Ruth Park

Born in New Zealand, Ruth Park came to Australia in 1942 to continue her career as a journalist. She married the writer D'Arcy Niland and travelled with him through the north-west of New South Wales before settling in Sydney where she became a full-time writer.

She has written over fifty books, and her many awards include the prestigious Miles Franklin Award for Swords and Crowns and Rings; the Australian Children's Book of the Year Award and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award (USA) for Playing Beatie Bow and The Age Book of the Year Award for A Fence Around the Cuckoo.

She was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 1987 and in 1994 was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of New South Wales. Ruth Park passed away in December 2010.

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Reviews

4.0

Based on 2 reviews

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2 Reviews

“‘It’s Beatie Bow,’ shrieked Mudda in a voice of horror, ‘risen from the dead!’”

If you’re an Australian of a certain age it’s practically a given that this book was one of your early high school English class assigned readings. You probably spent so much time second guessing what the author meant, trawling through the text for themes and writing essay after essay about characters, plot and location that even the sight of this book may make your heart sink.

You may even even remember watching the 1986 movie in your classroom on one of those combined TV and VHS contraptions; your teacher would have rolled it into your room on a metal trolley. My takeaway from the movie was that the girl who played Beatie Bow was someone I knew from Home and Away (it’s an Australian thing).

I liked this book in spite of myself in high school, even though my English teacher did everything in their power to make me hate it, what with their dreaded essays and overanalysing almost every single aspect of it. When my library ordered a new copy of it I wondered whether it would stand the test of time. It turns out it both does and doesn’t.

‘But I didna mean to bring you here, I didna know it could be done, heaven’s truth.’

The story, with Abigail accidentally following Beatie Bow back in time to 1873, is still quite interesting. As a kid I had no interest in history but I found the details of The Rocks in both Abigail’s present and Beatie’s fascinating in this reread. I was less interested in the prophecy that saw Abigail cast as the Stranger when I was a kid. Now I want to know more about how the Gift works. I’ve decided I don’t like Abigail or Beatie; I’m pretty sure I liked both of them when I was a kid. I was never a fan of the insta-love.

In my English class there was no discussion about the age gap between Abigail and Judah, no mention of Uncle Samuel’s mental health and no analysis of the sentences that made me cringe during this reread, those featuring racism, ableism and body shaming.

This reread has made me wonder what I’d think of other English class reads as an adult. I may need to revisit some more.

I’m rounding up from 3.5 stars.

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Ruth Parks is a great writer and her stories are always fascinating and heart warming. Great reading for the whole family

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