Rose Rivers (World of Hetty Feather)

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Mama always tuts when she sees my drawings. She doesn’t approve of them at all. Papa laughs and thinks them funny, but he says that I should start drawing seriously now. He is hoping that I have true artistic ability. It’s not just because he is an indulgent father (though he is!). He’d like at least one of his children to have inherited his talent. Rupert is the eldest but has never had the patience or indeed any natural ability at art. I am his twin and only fifteen minutes younger, so now Papa is pinning his hopes on me. The characters I found interesting in this book are Clover, the nursery maid, Beth, Rose’s troubled sister, and Mrs Budd, Beth’s nurse. I didn’t like Rose that much and I found Paris very creepy for kissing a 13-year-old. I learnt that Hyde Park was still a thing hundreds of years ago. The time it was set was interesting because they used interesting dialect. It was not realistic because her parents wouldn’t have stayed together as they did not love each other, and at the beginning it was said that the Dad had the money but later on her Mum had the money. The plot was exciting. I enjoyed this book. I think Clover Moon, Rose Rivers, and Beth Rivers were the characters I found most interesting, this is because they broadened my mind on how difficult life must of been for the poor, less capable, and also life as a girl during the Victorian times. Throughout the book, Jacqueline Wilson showed how people, who were not of a higher status, were to be excluded from justice, rights, and equality. Rose described her life while growing up and meeting others who were less privileged than herself, such as Clover who was brought as a maid from off the streets. Each time Clover mentioned her earlier stages of life, before becoming a maid, I really felt I was there in the streets, in the cold, with her. This opened my eyes to how fortunate I am, and how I take almost everything for granted. Overall I liked this book a lot because something is always going on which keeps you reading. Also, the pace of the story differs throughout the whole book. Not all questions are answered by the end but that lets the reader imagine what happens next. Papa’s praise obviously means a great deal, because he is the painter Edward Rivers, well known in artistic circles. He is a follower of the great Pre-Raphaelite painters, and when he was a young man he was considered equal to them in talent. He was also wild and bohemian. He even had a pet wombat, just like his hero, Rossetti.

Like in Dancing the Charleston, the crux of the plot happens away from the main setting – when Rose and her family travel to Scotland for New Year. The trip to Scotland threatens to blow her family apart and will have lasting consequences for Rose. Decided to take this one slower than other books I've read so far this year. I remember reading Hetty Feather ten years ago not long after it was published, and her brief reappearance, along with Wilson's writing in general, made me feel nostalgic for my cousin's box room where we used to hunch over books with endless cups of tea.... Jacqueline is also a great reader, and has amassed over 20,000 books, along with her famous collection of silver rings. Jacqueline Wilson wrote her first novel when she was nine years old, and she has been writing ever since. She is now one of Britain's bestselling and most beloved children's authors. She has written over 100 books and is the creator of characters such as Tracy Beaker and Hetty Feather. More than forty million copies of her books have been sold.ROSE RIVERS lives in a beautiful big London house with her artist father, querulous mother, six siblings and seven servants – and finds her life stif ling. She loves to study and longs to go to boarding school like her twin brother, but Victorian young ladies are supposed to be content staying at home. Let’s focus on before that. All her siblings are really well written and interesting and Rupert was really cool! I also loved the staff and the way that she managed to get Clover Moon and Hetty Feather in because they are some of my favourite characters! I love their fiery spirits. Rose is nice but she’s a bit of an annoying character and being in her head wasn’t as fun as Clover’s but I still liked it! Her parents were also cool and the storyline had a good flow and I liked it. Rupert and Pamela were weird but it didn’t bother me because she wasn’t a massive character.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book because it has a bit of history and it has problems that people in that time struggled with. The main character, Rose, has 6 other siblings including her twin brother Rupert. A series of different things happen and she does lots of things to help her troubled sister Beth. The book includes the characters Hetty Feather from the books Hetty Feather, Sapphire Battersea, Emerald Star, Hetty Feather’s Journal, and Hetty’s Christmas. And it also includes Clover Moon from the book Clover Moon. I would rate this book 9.5 out of 10 and I would say it is for people between 10 – 14.I’m really looking forward to when my daughter is old enough for Jacqueline Wilson! She’s 7 and a very good reader but really sensitive so we have to be careful about the content we expose her to. Hopefully in a year or two she’ll be ready for this one. #readwithme Post a Reply I truly enjoyed this latest offering from Jacqueline but did feel the book could be shorter however the story was full of the usual childish antics from her siblings. I did like the fact that Rose was a young girl with a crush on an older man as it can happen that we fall for someone we can't actually have and especially the way they get caught could've caused catastrophe for a Victorian family if what supposedly happened had truly happened!

One thing that stood out to me was the relationship between Rupert and Rose – they are twins but despite this they were completely different. Rose was way more tolerable against Rupert then she is with everyone else even though he was a liar and can be very self-centred. Last year Rupert was allowed to stay up and help Grandpapa light the fireworks. I am exactly the same age bar fifteen minutes, but I’m not allowed anywhere near a match. Grandpapa quotes the poem about Pauline from that silly nursery book Struwwelpeter. He relishes reciting: ‘Her apron burns, her arms, her hair; she burns all over everywhere.’ Grandmama frowns and wags her finger in warning. She is even stricter than Mama.

Jacqueline Wilson does a great job at covering the prejudices that many people faced for not being born as what was seen as an ideal member of society, and showed that although many people benefited from the inequality, there were still members of society that fought for the rights of others, and understood that they were not worth more or less based on their wealth. This book has helped me understand the vast changes in the world that have occurred to get us to a place where the gender or social standing that you were born with does not define what you can and can't do with your life. Public schools are dire and degrading, worse than any prison,’ he said. He knows about prisons too, because when he was young he was rather wild, and after an evening of drinking and tomfoolery he’d once spent the night in a prison cell. That is meant to be a deadly secret, but I’m actually rather proud to have a father who was once a criminal. Another in the Hetty Feather series, with - brace yourselves now - a headstrong young girl who doesn't like being told what to do! Oh, and she likes drawing! And reading! Can you believe it?