![]() ![]() Grace, Heather, Cathy, and Vivienne are distinctive and memorable and, while their down-under vocabulary may give some readers pause, it's an integral part of the strongly evoked setting and often self-explanatory. But though most of their attempts to be included with their social betters are doomed to failure, they are vital and imaginative, irrepressibly occupied with outrageous pranks, repartee, and rivalries- especially among themselves. The Mellings, whose improvident father's behavior (attributed to WW I experiences) is bizarre and whose mother is lost in writing some sadly uninspired verse, are near the bottom of the scale-of which they are painfully aware. ![]() Like the Marches', the Mellings' poverty is a factor in their struggles to make do and to get along with their peers Klein, too, reveals much through episodes focused on each of the girls. The gifted author of Hating Alison Ashley (1985) makes a bow to Little Women in an incisive, often hilarious portrait of four sisters growing up in the Australia of the late 1940's, with both parallels and contrasts to Alcott's novel enriching her story. ![]()
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