Pauline Burgess

Ah, adolescence, pre-teen, and early teenage years... It is a very difficult and emotional time for any girl, but even worse when feeling torn between feeling both proud and embarrassed by your own heritage and family, but then also moving to another country where no one around you shares the same culture or beliefs, and then trying to figure out what constitutes a good friendship and if what is on the surface is good enough or not. Having Polish heritage in my blood, I loved hearing the pieces of the culture and beliefs, and I yearned for Magda to stand her ground and feel proud, yet can also sympathize with her feeling she couldn’t, or shouldn’t, for fear of ridicule or ostracization from her peers. These years can be full of doubt, of fear, of humiliation, and having a close friend to be able to rely upon during this time can mean so much. Poor Magda wasn’t even sure she had that.… (plus d'informations)

Burgess, a teacher of 11-18 year-olds when she isn't writing, has created a wonderful protagonist in young Magda. Burgess offers an interesting glimpse into the mindset of a 13-year-old. I can appreciate Magda's desires to be as invisible as possible from the unwanted attentions of certain classmates and neighbourhood troublemakers. It is not easy being a newly minted teenager, to routinely face attacks for being a "forener", and then horror of horrors, discover that her dad and brother will be working as gardeners at her rather posh school, so it is no surprise that Magda, so entrenched in trying not to stand out, questions the sincerity of shiny Sophie's friendship (which, we come to learn, Madga has good reason to question).

Overall, a highly readable story with themes about family, friendship, immigration, and identity (one's identity is what one makes it to be, not how other people try to label you). As it says on the front book cover, "Sometimes to move forward in life, you have to take a step backwards."… (plus d'informations)