Robin Klein

“It was as though he’d been marooned on a desert island, and someone had come along and rescued him in a little boat. Promised to take him to safety. Only that person proved to know nothing about navigation, had taken him instead into rough wild seas . . . ”

This is a well-written, sensitive, and affecting Australian novel about an unlikely friendship between a timid eleven-year-old boy and a troubled twenty-year-old girl. It’s the summer holidays, and Seymour has been banished to show more the tiny home of the aging Thelma, a woman his mother knows from church. According to Seymour, his mum delights in self-generated drama and her victim status. Currently she’s concocted a story that Seymour’s drinking, gambling ne’er-do-well father, from whom she’s estranged, wants to abduct her son. Engaged in packing up her flat in preparation for a move and a new job situation, she places Seymour with Thelma for a few weeks. He has been ordered to stay indoors all day in the sizzling heat and upgrade his schoolwork while Thelma is at work. Although he’s a compliant, obedient sort, Seymour is so bored he climbs the back gate and goes out into Victoria Road, a bustling street with many shops. To escape some boys who harass him, he rushes through an open gate into another backyard along the same alleyway that Thelma’s property backs onto. There, the lively—and to Seymour—gorgeous Angie Easterbrook is sunbathing. At the girl’s bidding, Seymour quickly makes himself useful in her filthy little flat: preparing coffee and selecting earrings for her while she showers. And so their friendship begins.

Over the next several days, Seymour is Angie’s constant companion, and the two go on outings: to see the mansion-lined street where Angie eventually plans to live with her boyfriend Jas, to the park, the racetrack, and to a strained lunch meeting with Angie’s mother at the Easterbrook home in the suburbs. Angie talks non-stop to Seymour. She has big plans for a flower shop or perhaps a business that sells handicrafts and gifts. She goes about dressed in gaudy, outlandish outfits, each of which she has a name for—“Susan-Jane” for a pink, girly number, for example, and “Neptunia” for a dress that shimmers with the colours of the sea. Several times Seymour accompanies Angie to a “hospital” where the girl is in a program to receive special medication. It’s for “gastro” issues, she tells him, and the naïve boy, bedazzled by her and thrilled at having any friend at all, takes her at her word. But Angie’s periodic “flu” episodes, her dead-to-the-world sleeps, the disorder and squalor she lives in, her shiftiness, and her obvious estrangement from her parents, younger siblings, and best friend all point the reader to her addiction. It seems likely that what she is receiving in her “program” is methadone. (Author Robin Klein provides Angie’s backstory by sprinkling the narrative with letters from Angie’s family and friends, extracts about plans and debts Angie’s diary, one of the girl’s pitiful job applications—which testifies only to her unreliability as an employee, and other documentary “evidence” of the chaos of the young woman’s life.)

In the end, Seymour’s friendship with Angie represents his coming of age. The bats are “released from the compartments of his mind” assailing “his whole being with their black fluttering” and “all the elaborate pretences he’d so carefully built” are no longer useful. The person Seymour has placed his trust in is not trustworthy and cannot navigate her own life, never mind help him with his. The boy makes a decision to act to help his friend, and the reader follows along with interest to see how it goes.

In spite of the serious subject matter, Klein’s book has many light touches. Her characterization is strong, and the author’s depiction of Angie’s family’s difficulties in coping with the girl are realistically portrayed. While Klein doesn’t provide a “happy” ending exactly, she does end on a note of hopefulness.

Recommended for readers 12 and up, who like character-driven novels. show less

This book was part of my class's reading time in Grade 2. Two decades on and I still remember how uncomfortable and sad this book made me feel. Shelley is horrible to begin with and she treats Ben appallingly. I remember being torn between understanding and not quite understanding how she could be so mean. This book deals with some very important issues surrounding disabilities and the way we treat ourselves and others. And it's relevant even more so today. The friendship that develops show more between them is sweet but it is hard won and it really makes you feel for the struggles Ben suffers. I can't say I liked this book, but even as an 8 year old I remember thinking it was important. 4 stars. show less

The Sky in Silver Lace is the third book about the Melling sisters. Like Dresses of Red and Gold, it is very episodic, more like a collection of sequential short stories, and the season is a thematic thread tying them together.

Even taking into account that the story is set during winter, I thought it was surprisingly bleak. The girls have moved to the city with their mother; their accommodation is temporary, money is tight, their mother is stressed and their father is absent. There are small show more triumphs and moments of hope - particularly at the end - but I was left feeling like their happiness was fragile, even if the girls themselves didn't realise that.

And now I am sad that there isn't a fourth book about the Melling girls and spring, because I think it is needed.

The banks of a lake ought to be picturesque, she thought, deciding that all her trudging hadn't been worth the effort. Even the sand was greyish, strewn with ugly purple shells and rank seaweed. You couldn't paddle, either, even if it had been warm enough to do so. The water was quite deep close to the bank and didn't look inviting at all. It just lurked there, almost motionless, like fog. show less

This is a sequel to All in the Blue Unclouded Weather, a book I may or may not have read as a child. (That title is familiar but the characters were not.)

It is about three sisters, living in a country town during the 1940s. (Heather is 14, Cathy turns 12 and, at a guess, Vivienne is nine or ten).

It's very episodic, more like a collection of sequential short stories, than an actual novel. The historical details are interesting, and the book does a good job of capturing the girls' show more perspectives and motivations and significant experiences. However, the descriptions of the season - autumn - were my favourite part.

When Nurse Durbach had whirled away to tackle a dozen other jobs, Vivienne had gazed out at the lawn, carpeted gloriously with fallen leaves. Some had blown against the window panes, attaching themselves like a frieze of red and gold paper decorations. [...] Some spiralled down to join the window-pane frieze, others drifted out across the lawn, some clung stubbornly to their stalks even when tugged by a strong gust of wind. There seemed to be some unfathomable pattern in the sequence of their falling. Autumn leaves would make beautiful dresses, she thought idly, if they could only be preserved and stitched together. Such garments would be breathtaking - a rich gold and red fabric that would rustle at the wearer's every movement. show less