I have always enjoyed Jacqueline Wilsons books and so I was excited to read this one. When I first started the book I found unlike most of her books it took me a while to get into the book and but around a hundred pages in it started to get really interesting and I didn’t want to put the book down.
Opal Plumstead lives with her Mother, Father and sister Cassie and enjoys going to school with a scholarship with her best friend Olivia but after her father is found to have got in trouble with the law he ends up going to prison and the three of them must manage alone at home. This means Opal must leave school and get a job at Fairy Glen where she earns money to keep the household going through hard times.
I really liked the character of Opal and how she seemed shy but would stand up for herself when she had to. I think she had a great relationship with Mrs Roberts and I liked seeing how this developed as she became more confident in the factory. I was surprised that Opal was interested in suffragettes but I thought it was an interesting twist to the story and not something I had ever read about before. I found the story really got interesting when Mrs Roberts son Morgan was brought into the story and I wish he had been in the first half of the book as prominently as he was the second.
The ending surprised me a lot in many ways and it was quite sad which is not something I expected from a children’s book but I think it fit in well with the story as well so however sad it was still a good ending. I never expected to like this book as much as I did, I really recommend reading this book however old you are.
- Goodreads rating – 4.26
- REVIEW – Jade