Playing Beatie Bow, by Ruth Park

Damaged by her parents’ divorce, introverted 14-year-old Abigail has a yen for vintage clothing and disdain for the usual preoccupations of teen girls. Observing a dark children’s game draws her into an unfamiliar Sydney and a terrifying adventure that teaches her a lot about herself and about what is truly valuable. It’s always interesting to revisit favourite books of childhood or teen years to see if the appeal holds. Time travel, first romance, teen angst – what’s not to love? But it’s the quality of Ruth Park’s writing and the attention to historical detail of 1870s Sydney that really holds interest. The story has a lovely circularity, with elements of folklore and superstition and an examination of the changing face of Sydney over a century – for better and for worse. The film version is very faithful to the story, possibly too much so - lifting whole slabs of dialogue. While it’s fun to see the young Peter Phelps and Nikki Coghill in action, generally the script, acting and cinematography are all sub par. It would be good to see a new version, or better yet a four par series, although it could be a struggle to find suitable authentic locations 40 years on – irony indeed.