Susan, by Amy Walton
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This charming little book was expressly written for younger children,
aged about 11 or 12. There's plenty in the book for children of that
age to enjoy, but older children might be a bit impatient.
Susan and her family live in London, but she has a brother of ten years
old who has a nasty chronic illness, and is bed-ridden. His family are
advised to take him for the rest of the winter to a warmer climate, so
his mother takes him to Algiers. During this interlude Susan is to go
to stay with a great-aunt who lives at Ramsgate, a small town by the sea
in the eastern part of Kent, the county of England to the south-east of
London.
There are several other girls staying with the aunt, two of them a bit
older than Susan, grown-up, almost, while Sophia Jane is Susan's age.
Sophia Jane appears to have what we would now call behavioural problems,
but during the course of the book we learn to see her in a better light,
and it is Susan who can be not altogether excellent.
Both little girls learn a lot about life from each other.
Intertwined with the story are the affairs of a charming French brother
and sister. We won't give away more of the story than that. Enjoy the
book. NH
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