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feather_ghyll) wrote2011-01-16 03:35 pm
feather_ghyll) wrote2011-01-16 03:35 pm
REREADING: Jessica on her Own
Jessica on Her Own: Mary K. Harris Faber Fanfares 1978
I reread this over the Christmas holidays (and I might as well be honest, I think I'm more likely to write about the Australian Open than I am to post more reviews of anything that I read over Christmas). I picked it up because the book was mixed in a pile of non children's books that I was sorting through as part of the slow process of removing more of my books from my parents'. I must have read it before, although I didn’t remember much about it.
Jessica is the ‘difficult’ middle Rendell daughter. Sophie, the youngest, is clever and neat and adored for it. Extrovert Rosalind also finds it easier to be good, although she sometimes comes across as a bit of a smothering cow. She managed to pass her eleven plus and goes to the Grammar school. Jessica failed and is content to laze along in most lessons, although she likes Art. She’s terrified of some of the bigger boys who go to her school, but is best friends with Nance, who has Opinions and isn’t aftraid to voice them. And then Mrs Rendell’s sister and brother-in-law die, leaving their adopted daughter Isabel, whom the eldest girls only met once, orphaned in Edinburgh. Mrs Rendell eventually brings her down to live with them. Although she cautions the girls that life will be difficult for Isabel, who is grieving at the loss of her family and needing to adjust to a new life in which she is no longer the only child, Rosalind is sure that it will all be fine, as they are of an age, Isabel will join her in the A stream and they will be chums. Jessica just feels mutinous, her general state. But when Isabel comes, Jessica is sensitive enough to realise that Isabel may have feelings that it wouldn’t occur to Rosalind to notice, such as being upset at the loss of the privacy of a bedroom of her own, when Uncle Richard, Jessica’s unemployed uncle comes to stay (he's Jessica's godfather too, so she feels propriartorial).
Life is hard for Jessica, partly because she forgets things or is talked into doing things she shouldn’t, she’s sensitive enough to feel bad – for instance, it’s one thing for her to be called lazy, although she starts to see how very lazy she is, but she feels like a worm when it is pointed out that she can be mean. And then, her well-meaning attempts to make up for her mistakes often lead to further disaster, as Jessica is the type to get things wrong, and she always feels shown up by the three more decorous, better behaved girls under the same roof as her. But Jessica has more sympathy and understanding for others’ foibles than her more ‘perfect’ sisters.
This was a pretty absorbing read. All the characters are very human, Harris shows the adults as relatable and doesn’t pander to her audience. The depiction of life at a Secondary Modern for a sensitive girl is well handled, with the fact that the daughter of a Telegraph reader failed to make it to the Grammar part of the tapestry that’s weaved from Jessica’s life. She’s an odd mix of rebeliousness and sensitivity, and Isabel’s tragedy is one thread among pocket money worries and tiffs between school friends and all the other likely worries for a thirteen year old in the second form. The book made me want to reread the other Harris books that I own.
I reread this over the Christmas holidays (and I might as well be honest, I think I'm more likely to write about the Australian Open than I am to post more reviews of anything that I read over Christmas). I picked it up because the book was mixed in a pile of non children's books that I was sorting through as part of the slow process of removing more of my books from my parents'. I must have read it before, although I didn’t remember much about it.
Jessica is the ‘difficult’ middle Rendell daughter. Sophie, the youngest, is clever and neat and adored for it. Extrovert Rosalind also finds it easier to be good, although she sometimes comes across as a bit of a smothering cow. She managed to pass her eleven plus and goes to the Grammar school. Jessica failed and is content to laze along in most lessons, although she likes Art. She’s terrified of some of the bigger boys who go to her school, but is best friends with Nance, who has Opinions and isn’t aftraid to voice them. And then Mrs Rendell’s sister and brother-in-law die, leaving their adopted daughter Isabel, whom the eldest girls only met once, orphaned in Edinburgh. Mrs Rendell eventually brings her down to live with them. Although she cautions the girls that life will be difficult for Isabel, who is grieving at the loss of her family and needing to adjust to a new life in which she is no longer the only child, Rosalind is sure that it will all be fine, as they are of an age, Isabel will join her in the A stream and they will be chums. Jessica just feels mutinous, her general state. But when Isabel comes, Jessica is sensitive enough to realise that Isabel may have feelings that it wouldn’t occur to Rosalind to notice, such as being upset at the loss of the privacy of a bedroom of her own, when Uncle Richard, Jessica’s unemployed uncle comes to stay (he's Jessica's godfather too, so she feels propriartorial).
Life is hard for Jessica, partly because she forgets things or is talked into doing things she shouldn’t, she’s sensitive enough to feel bad – for instance, it’s one thing for her to be called lazy, although she starts to see how very lazy she is, but she feels like a worm when it is pointed out that she can be mean. And then, her well-meaning attempts to make up for her mistakes often lead to further disaster, as Jessica is the type to get things wrong, and she always feels shown up by the three more decorous, better behaved girls under the same roof as her. But Jessica has more sympathy and understanding for others’ foibles than her more ‘perfect’ sisters.
This was a pretty absorbing read. All the characters are very human, Harris shows the adults as relatable and doesn’t pander to her audience. The depiction of life at a Secondary Modern for a sensitive girl is well handled, with the fact that the daughter of a Telegraph reader failed to make it to the Grammar part of the tapestry that’s weaved from Jessica’s life. She’s an odd mix of rebeliousness and sensitivity, and Isabel’s tragedy is one thread among pocket money worries and tiffs between school friends and all the other likely worries for a thirteen year old in the second form. The book made me want to reread the other Harris books that I own.