I will forever remember the moment I first encountered this book. After a particularly mundane school day I plonked myself down in the backseat of our car and prepared for the drive home. However, instead of starting the engine my mother turned around and said, "I've got a small surprise for you. I was at a bookshop today and thought you might enjoy this." She then proceeded to hand me a copy of Playing Beatie Bow. Getting a book as a surprise gift truly made my day, I was almost giddy with anticipation to read it. I was nine years old, and although I liked it, I don't think I really understood it all.

Reading it as an adult I have a completely different appreciation of it.

I found it to be an easy, quick read. The events unfolded much faster given that my grown up brain was able to digest the themes of supernatural time travel, period English language, brothels and complicated emotional feelings much easier.

I still like Abigail and still found Beatie to be a little brat. The story moved at a quick pace and changed enough to keep you interested. I also appreciated the ending despite it's sappiness and that it 'tied everything up neatly'.

Upon re-reading I'm not sure I would give it to a 9 year old to read as it does peek into somewhat adult themes, but then again those themes flew right over my head back then and I loved the book. ( )

An Australian YA book from the 80's, this was a RL book club read. Though not science-fiction so much as historical time-travel, the book feels akin to the Australian equivalent of A Wrinkle in Time.

Abigail is an unhappy 14 year old, bitter and bratty after her parents' separation. She spends time with her next-door neighbour, Justine, helping her out by taking Justine's two kids to the playground, where the youngest, Natalie, likes to watch the other kids play a game called 'Beatie Bow'; a cross between Bloody Mary and tag. Natalie and Abigail notice another child that only watches, the 'furry girl' that stands in the shadows. One day, Abigail sees the girl and approaches her, then gives chase as the girl runs away. As she runs down the street, she suddenly finds herself in 1873, stuck there until she helps the furry girl, who turns out to be Beatie Bow, and her family figure out how to save the family 'Gift'.

More than a few of my friends here consider this a beloved classic, so imagine my chagrin when I showed up to book club and had to admit I didn't like it. Fortunately, I wasn't alone. The book has a lot going for it: the writing is beautiful, the setting evocative; Park puts you in Sydney in 1873, and let me tell you, it's filthy. Park won the Australian Book of the Year Award in 1981 and it was well deserved.

But...I don't like time travel books, I'm not a fan of the dark edge so prevalent in even Australian YA, and most unfortunate of all, I didn't like a single character in this book. Abigail was a spoiled, whiney, brat; Beattie Bow was too ornery to be considered charming and the rest didn't get enough page time to be anything other that friendly shadows. Abigail's first love was just too trite; I couldn't buy it, it was all too neat and pat (although to be fair, I might have totally bought it when I was 12).

The book is a worthy read, I just wasn't the right audience for it. ( )

SO GOOD!! ( )

I loved this book almost as much as the previous Ruth Park I read (Pink Flannel). Playing Beatie Bow works on several levels. First, it offers great entertainment just for the plot: Abigail, 14, a contemporary Sydney resident, travels in time back to 1873. There she becomes entwined in the life of a family from the Orkney Islands. Second, it is a coming-of-age novel that adults can enjoy as much as the target juvenile/YA audience. Abigail grows both physically and emotionally over the course of the story. Third, Abigail's thoughtful reflections on the differences in past and contemporary Sydney, both socially and physically, are fascinating. ( )

A lonely Australian girl from a divided family is transported back to the 1880's and an immigrant family from the Orkney Islands.