Text Stories

A Fairy Tale For Christmas     (Pages: 15-16)

• Art: David Matysiak

This story is told in a stream of consciousness of a person observing people around the shops for Christmas. It has nice quick pace to it makes you feel the hustle and bustle of the shops. The narrator not only observes what is going around her but also makes up background stories for people, which are sometimes proved wrong. Like the old woman she believes is miserable lives alone in a high rise building suddenly breaks out into a smile when she is surrounded by her grand children. The twist at the end is that the observer is not a person but  the fairy on top of the Christmas tree (although the title may give that a way!). It’s a fun, fast paced story.

 

The Trouble With Barry     (Pages: 42-43)

In a foster home Thorley Grange, the new boy Barry keeps getting into trouble. The narrator has been at the home since she was a baby and while the other kids are getting sick of Barry she feels sorry for him. He plays truancy from school and gets in fights with the other boys. When she finds a comic in the bin with all the words scratched out, she realises along with previous hints (such as skipping English class) that Barry can’t read. He has been moved around so much and been to so many schools he was able to bluff his way through it. She goes to Barry and offers to each him in secret. He is suspicious at first but she tells him she just wants to be a friend.  When he smiles and agrees to it, she notices what a change that makes to his face, and although she knows he won’t change over night but now he has someone he can depend on.

The Best Gift of All…     (Pages: 85-86)

Spot Art: David Matysiak

A girl Kirsty and her young brother watch the shore hoping for their father’s fishing boat to return after a some stormy weather. Eventually they go home and make preparations for Christmas day, although Kirsty wants it over and done with now. She is tempted to just tear down all the decorations particularly her father’s socks hanging as stockings on their bed rails. That night Christmas Eve she finds it difficult to get to sleep. She wakes up to find her father standing in his socks that were hanging up. He promises them gifts when the shops are opened but they don’t care because they have got what they wanted the most now

Photo Stories

Kate’s Story / Lynne’s Story / Tina’s Story     (Pages: 17-19,  46-48,  81-84)

This photo story is told over one day from the point of view of three different girls. Firstly Kate plans to go on a picnic with her friend Lynne and isn’t  happy when her mother makes her invite the new neighbour Tina as well. She thinks Tina is a boring, stuck-up know it all. They go to a castle and Kate isn’t happy with Tina telling them everything out of the guidebook.  Kate and Lynne go exploring while Tina finishes reading her book. Kate decides to teach Tina a lesson tricking her to look at a mark in the dungeon then pushing her in and locking the door.

Lynne has a different view of the day as she actually found Tina to be an interesting and she isn’t happy when Kate locks Tina in the dungeon. Lynne isn’t very brave and lets Kate boss her around, so she gives into her suggestion to do more exploring before letting Tina out. She does eventually convince Kate to go back for Tina but they are surprised to find her gone, although the door was still locked. They go to gather Tina’s things up and Lynne notices her guidebook. When Kate turns around she finds Lynne has disappeared too.

Finally Tina’s story wraps everything up. It turns out she didn’t want to go on the picnic but her mum thought she should be friendly. She thinks Kate is reckless and Lynne is nice but a bit dull. After she is thrown in dungeon, she is glad she read her guidebook because she read about a secret passage. She comes out by some rock pools that she decides to study it rather than find the others. She is surprised when Lynne finds her, she tells her she looked at guidebook too and figured it out. They decide to let Kate worry for a bit and Tina actually has fun messing about. Kate finally finds them after buying a guidebook herself. She yells at first but then laughs at Tina being so untidy. So despite all their differences the three become good friends after this. I like stories that are told from different points of view, so the story is enjoyable enough, it’s really the photos that bring it down, not only do they look staged but also some instances look like characters have been cut out and pasted onto backgrounds.

Six Thousand Miles From Home     (Pages: 65-70)

Julia is on her way to visit relatives in California for the Summer holidays. She is unhappy because her parents are sending her to there because they feel she is wasting her life, being lazy and only hanging out at a coffee bar with her friend Sandra. They think Sandra is a bad influence on her, although when Julia tells Sandra about the holiday she tells her it’s a wonderful place and she hopes she enjoys it.  Julia is determined not to enjoy the holiday as it won’t be fun without her friend. So she spends the next few days moping around and refusing to participate in anything. When her cousin Glen starts getting harassed by his friends, over her behaviour she tries to make an effort for his sake. She actually begins to have fun, but then worries that she has broken her promise to Sandra not to enjoy herself (seems she didn’t listen to her friend telling her she should enjoy it!)  When she gets home she decides it’s time for a change, she is going to be more active but she doesn’t know how Sandra will take the news.  She needn’t worry though because Sandra didn’t spend her time moping and sitting alone in a coffee bar while Julie was gone.  She went out and tried out the new community centre and she is happy that they are going to go out more and try new things together.

Jane at St. Jude’s    (Pages: 97-101)

Jane and some of her friends are entering a photography competition.  While developing the photos Jane notices that in the background of one photo a girl Ros is with a boy. He is the same boy that she has seen Ros talking with at a disco with the local boy’s boarding school. She follows Ros another day and sees her with the boy again, she wonders what to do as it is strictly against the rules to meet boys. She decides to have a word with Ros that night but they are caught outside their dorms by a teacher. Ros explains that she is very homesick and she has been meeting with Simon because they grew up together, he is like a brother to her. The teacher tells her she can’t sneak around anymore but they can get Simon family privileges so they can meet. Jane wins the competition with a photo she wasn’t actually going to enter.

Train to Nowhere    (Pages: 107-112)

Tracy annoys her friends by being constantly late and forgetful. They arrange to go to Sarah’s cousin’s costume party, they are going to meet the day before at Sarah’s to show off the costumes. Of course Tracy gets the nights mixed up and Sarah tells her there is no time to show her costume and they will just have to meet at the train station. Sarah gets to the station very late and she’s not even sure she’s at the right station. Suddenly she is surrounded by people in costumes, she thinks they are her friends but is scared when the refuse to talk. They drag her onto a train, there is no one else on it and she can’t get back out. She keeps asking them are they playing a joke on her as the train pulls away

.This is meant to be a creepy story and a lesson about time-keeping and paying more attention.  The costumes look cheap though and the background is bright, so  it really doesn’t capture a dark, scary atmosphere.

Features 

Debbie’s Superpets     (Pages: 2-3,  49,  64,  126-127)

These are posters of cute animals accompanied by a poem.

Clowning Around     (Pages: 9-11)

Eleven year old Diane is taken to  Clowns in Berkeley Square London (which I think is no longer opened) to full-fill her dream of being a clown. It follows her experience for the day.

Teaser Time      (Pages: 28-29)

The traditional page of puzzles, which is always fun.

Hop To It!     (Pages: 33-35)

An article that looks at the game hopscotch, the rules of both the old and new versions.

Fun Afloat     (Pages: 50-52)

At the National Sailing Centre, the writer of the article takes the basic 7 day course to learn about sailing. As with  all this factual articles there are lots of photos to accompany the piece.

Circus Girl      (Pages: 58-59)

An interview with Helen Fossett, who was 15 at the time, about her life with Fossetts circus.

Just For A Change…      (Pages: 63-63)

A quiz that tells what a person’s personality is like by what they wear and how their room looks.

Get Smart!     (Pages: 71-73)

A class get a unique day out at London Academy of  Modelling and Grooming, it focuses particularly on one girl Joanne, some things she learns include how to stand and walk down the catwalk correctly and how to chose and blend make up. There are boys in the class too, the article says there is lots for them to learn to but the only example they give is a boy giving Joanne a hand off the catwalk.

Goody Goodies!      (Pages: 74-75)

Baking recipes for  a Chocolate Bean Cottage, Coconut Ice Figures, Meringue Figures and Costumed Biscuits.

Guess Who? – Its Peter Davison     (Pages: 79-80)

An interview with Peter Davidson of Doctor Who fame. Just goes to show some things never go out of date! Going by the date of the annual it must have been close to when he was going to finish up on Dr. Who. It doesn’t discuss any mention of his future departure but does discuss other projects he was involved in.

Snack-Happy!      (Pages: 89)

Cheap party treats to make including Savoury Sticks and Cheesy does it.

Picture It!     (Pages: 102-103)

A chance to get creative. This has drawings that are divided into squares so to make it easy to copy.

Animal Magic      (Pages: 119-122)

An article about Stephanie Tickner a vet at London zoo.

 

Last Thoughts

There are a lot of humour strips here, that wouldn’t be out of place in Beano or Buster. Calculator Cathy reminded me of another character with a magical calculator, Calculator Kid from Cheeky, although his magic calculator worked in a different way calculating the best course of action for Charlie. The humour strips are fun and there are some other good stories, my favourites being the Fairy Tale text story and the beautifully drawn and creepy Garden of Glass. The Shop at Shudder Corner and Spring-Heeled Jill seem interesting and I would like to see more stories about them.

One of the annuals biggest downfalls is the photo stories, it can be difficult to make a good photo story as they look so staged, the 3 part story was mostly okay, but the others really didn’t add anything to the annual. Overall I think that this annual wouldn’t convince me that I’m missing out not reading  Debbie. Perhaps this isn’t the best example of Debbie, as presumably this came out not long before the comic merged with Mandy, so there might be stronger annuals and stories.  Still  this has some nice art,  some interesting features and a couple of good stories.