by Jacqueline Wilson
Published by Doubleday Childrens
My third granddaughter, aged 10, recently mentioned The Runaway Girls, a new Wilson title she wanted to read, but her mum had said she had to wait for the paperback. So of course Granny bought it in hardback for GD3’s birthday. She also purchased a download and read it herself.
It tells the warmly uplifting tale of two very different Victorian children. Lucy, who narrates the story, lives in a stultifying middle class prosperous home where she has to live by a lot of rigid rules and gets no hands-on affection from anyone. Wilson isn’t afraid of the odd stereotype but, as ever, she makes every character richly plausible. The other main character, Kitty, is a poor, street child who knows all about survival when you have nothing. She is full of joie-de-vivre, freedom and knowledge.
An accident with a doll which isn’t Lucy’s fault but she is punished for it leads to her eventual escape from the house. She is robbed and meets Kitty. The rest of the novel describes their unlikely but affirmative developing friendship as they knock the corners off each other and set off on a shared journey – both literally and figuratively. Will Lucy ever go back home? Is it necessarily any better than her new life? No spoilers but suffice it to say that there’s lots to discuss here and I shall look forward to mulling it over with GD3 when she’s read it. It would make an excellent “sharing” book for a Year 5 or 6 class.