Playing Beatie Bow

Abigail is dismayed to learn that her mother and father are contemplating getting back together and moving to another country to make a fresh start. She can't understand why her mother would agree to take her father back, after he left her mother and the family for a young woman he met at work. Then Abigail suddenly and unexpectedly finds that she has traveled back in time to 1870's Australia. After befriending people in the earlier time, Abigail is finally able to return to her own time with a deeper understanding of relationships.

The details of life in Australia almost a hundred and fifty years ago were fascinating. The speech patterns author Ruth Park used for her characters from the 1870's were especially compelling. Though the story could have easily been a Sassy-Teen-Learns-Her-Lesson-and-Becomes-Nicer, Park went beyond stereotypes to make her characters nicely flawed and realistic. I enjoyed this first venture into Aussie August a lot.