‘Young’ Davey was a thin, wizened man in his fifties, but his sinewy arms were strong enough to lift a two-handled copper pan full of sugar syrup. ‘Ready now! Sharp with the syrup, young Davey,’ called the burly man. I peered in cautiously and saw that he was stirring almonds, gently browning them. Girls of 12 plus should enjoy Opal Plumstead.“What is he cooking?’ I whispered. Times are changing and the war will turn the world upside-down. I particularly enjoyed Opal’s beautiful sister Cassie, who, unbeknownst to her mother, has a ‘gentleman friend’, an artist, and poses for him – and that’s not all she does. However, Jacqueline Wilson is excellent at capturing the feel of pre-1914 Britain the class distinctions, the limitations on women’s choices, Mrs Roberts’ wonderfully Pre-Raphaelite house the pressure on young men to sign up and go to war, and so on. In my view, the earlier section could do with judicious pruning. Then, suddenly, all that disappears and a different story begins when Opal walks, trembling, through the gates of the sweet factory. This is a long book, 520 pages, and, for the first 140 pages, the main characters are Opal’s beloved, if hopeless, father her best friend Olivia and Opal’s struggles at school.
Then Opal meets Mrs Roberts’ son, Morgan, who, she feels is her soulmate.
Furthermore, she takes her to a suffragette meeting and invites her back to tea. Her life becomes utterly miserable.įortunately, Mrs Roberts discovers Opal’s artistic talent and gives her a more interesting job decorating sweet tins. Her father, an overworked clerk with literary aspirations, is caught forging a cheque and ends up in prison Olivia is forbidden to see her and Opal must leave school and go to work at Mrs Roberts’ sweet factory, ‘Fairy Glen’, where she’s bullied. She copes with not fitting in at school (she’s plump and shabbily dressed) because her best friend, Olivia, is on her side.
She hopes to go to university, though her real love is painting. Fourteen-year-old Opal Plumstead is a scholarship girl at a posh school.
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