The story of the famous Native American (though told in a very biased way!) and her friendship with the settlers of Jamestown. The story follows her life growing up in America and her travel t o England, marriage to John Rolfe and eventual death.
Follows the lives, families, romances and friendships of a group of students including Patti Wheeler, Ellie Lane, Deepa Shastri, and Gladys Bates.
Other Appearances
Annual Appearances
Summer Specials
The Millpark Mystery! – Mandy PSL: #240 (1996)Plot
Three friends Ruth, Anne and Teri are starting a new school after their old school closes down. They are a bit nervous about their first day and it does not start out well. They have a run in with a group of troublemakers, led by a girl named Mel. They don’t make a good impression with the other students either or with one of the teachers, Mrs. Stead. The only highlight of their first day is for Anne who is a computer fanatic, she is happy to see that Millpark has better computer facilities than their old school. The girls think they will get in more trouble when another teacher catches them in the computer room. They are pleasantly surprised when Miss. Brown is friendly with them, she is a French teacher and while she says she doesn’t know much about computers but she does encourage Anne’s interest.
The next day they run into the two girls Mel and Patti, but are surprised when some other girls come to their defence. Even Mrs Stead turns out to be more friendly, she was just stressed the first day. They still think Miss Brown is the nicest teacher and are surprised to hear that no other students or teachers seem to like her. They see a different side to Miss Brown when she sticks up for Mel’s gang over their new friends and later they see her giving money to Mel. They follow Miss Brown and see her going for French lessons. They decide they have to solve this mystery. Miss Brown seeing them nosing around, tells them she’s not really a teacher but a policewoman, undercover.
Although she doesn’t tell them what she’s investigating the girl’s suspect it has something to do with Mel. Later Anne meets Mel at computer shop and gets talking to her, she tells her that Miss Brown buys her games, one is particularly difficult where you play a hacker. When they are at the school and see police talking about fraud, they see Miss Brown is ready to make a run for it and a phone call proves she is not actually a policewoman. The girls get Mel and her gang to delay Miss Brown while they get the police. Realising Miss Brown was going to let Mel take the fall for the money fraud, Mel is grateful to the girls. The girls are glad to settle into Millpark, although Anne has been put off computers knowing that she must have been Miss Brown’s second choice to use her computer skills.
Help… – Bunty PSL: #347 (1992)Plot
Leon a computer whizz, has gone missing. While everyone believes he ran off due to school pressure, his brother Rick thinks that something has happened to him. He confides in Kim of his theory and later in computer studies she believes him. when she sees a message from Leon on her computer screen, it says “Help my name is Leon I am being held prisoner”. Unfortunately instead of taking the time to read the rest of the message, she runs to show Rick the message but it has disappeared by the time they comes back. Neither her friend Zoe nor teacher Mr. King believe it was there. Kim and Rick have a lead as they know the message came from a striped disk. Having met the delivery guy earlier, they track him down, and find out that there was 6 disks altogether, 3 were delivered to the school, another 2 to a scientist and the last one to a hospital.
Both Kim and Rick work together to try and find the disks. They find the second disk at the school but it is blank. They track down the scientist, but he wiped the disks as he thought the message was just some game. Kim is reluctant to go to the hospital as her mother works there. Also she worries that Rick’s interest in her is only because he wants her to help him. When she finds his notebook, she finds out a bit more about Rick’s relationship with his brother. He was jealous of Leon and he hopes he can find him and put things right between them. He also mentions how he feels about Kim and wishes they could go out under normal circumstances. This is enough to convince Kim to sneak around the hospital.
They find the message from Leon and discover Mr. King is involved with the kidnappers who want Leon to crack a bank code. Before they can read the message further they have to hide from a woman coming into the room. She accidentally spills coffee onto the disk ruining it. Rick and Kim are caught and Kim gets in trouble with her mother. They are taken to see the headmaster, coincidentally at the same time his secretary is about to use the last disk. Seeing the message, Leon is rescued, Mr King is arrested and of course Kim and Rick don’t get into any trouble now the full story is known.
Thoughts
These two short stories have some similarities as they are both set around school and have computer related mysteries. Both seem to have the theme that if a teacher takes an interest in your computer skills you should not trust them! Also both the antagonists are also using computers to try and hack banks.
In The Millpark Mystery the jumping point for the mystery is Miss Brown’s behaviour and the computer references are more in the background. Early on there is a newspaper headline about money being wrongly transferred into someone’s account. Both Mel and Anne are computer geeks and of course Miss Brown takes quite an interest in the girls computers skills. Miss Brown seems to have a better plan in place than Mr. King. She has a good cover in pretending to be clueless about computers, and has already got Mel set up to be the fall girl. When the girls start investigating her, she is quick to come up with the story of being an undercover police woman.
Meanwhile Help… jumps straight into the mystery with Leon missing and Kim and Rick having to try and track down the disks with his message. Unlike Miss Brown, he has no pretence of being nice, Mr King’s nickname is Cannibal King and he looks very shady from the start. I’m not sure what his plan with Leon was after he got the bank code, presumably he would have him killed as he could identify him, or maybe once he had the money he figured he could skip the country, still it’s not as neat as Miss Brown’s plan.
In Millpark, I like Anne’s attempt to connect with Mel over their common interest, even after the girls think Miss Brown is investigating her. She thinks someone that likes computers can’t be all bad! The girl’s are all very active in trying to discover what is Miss Brown’s story. Meanwhile Kim’s motives for trying to track down the disks are a bit more blurry. Understandably she’s a bit cautious about wanting to find the hospital disks as she doesn’t want to get into trouble. But a lot of her motive seems to be about Rick rather than helping Leon. She is worried that Rick is only using her to help find his brother and that he doesn’t really like her as a girlfriend. Once she reads his notepad she is happy to go to the hospital. It seems a bit self centred, shouldn’t she want to help someone who’s been kidnapped regardless of Rick’s feelings for her!
I suppose it is a typical teenage reaction (although it is under unusual circumstances). Another teenage response from Kim is she doesn’t tell her parents about the disks so when she gets caught sneaking around the hospital of course she gets in trouble. It’s funny that once the truth comes out, the mother is like if she told her the story from the beginning then she would have gone and gotten the hospital disk for Kim herself! Maybe she should have given her parents more credit!
Both stories are nice little mystery/ adventure stories. The art is fine in both, but I do like Feito’s extra work put into the backgrounds. Of the two stories, I think, Miss Brown makes the better more craftier antagonist. As for the protagonists I think the Millpark girls also win due to Kim being more concerned about her potential romance than Leon. That said I do like Rick, he obviously feels guilty about being jealous and not supportive of his brother. It’s nice that they have a good talk (although it’s off-panel) after Leon is rescued. I also liked the plot of them trying to track down the disks. The story does play up the romance angle, which isn’t bad, it just sometimes makes Kim look like she should get some priorities straight. I prefer the ending of Help… with her and Rick together rather than Millpark’s oddly anti-computer message.
Katherine Wilson’s younger sister, Sarah, arrives home one day with a sinister looking balloon. Sarah describes the balloon as a wizard, and it makes Katherine very uneasy to be around. Some strange weather starts to occur soon after the Balloon’s arrival. The family have to evacuate their house for a time after flooding hits the town. Katherine is the only person to suspect the Balloon in these strange weather occurrences. She tries to get rid of the Balloon, but finds that she can’t burst it like a normal balloon, and she ends up getting in trouble when she tries. Such as when she catapults a stone at it, the stone bounces off and breaks a church window. Her attempts to burst it only anger the Balloon and it retaliates against her.
When the Wilson’s return home after the flooding things don’t get any better. Katherine keeps having dreams about a genie, but she doesn’t understand how they can help her. Sarah is turning into a greedy and malicious child. She gets the Balloon to steal a bike for her and it is implied that the Balloon to set fire to the bike shop because the owner wasn’t nice to her. She also threatens Katherine, because with the “wizard” she can do whatever she wants.
About halfway into the serial there is shift in the story when Sarah gets sick and Katherine agrees to look after the Balloon. Soon Katherine actually begins to feel sorry for it and though it continues to cause destruction, she believes it isn’t evil. Part of this change of heart is after it saves her life. In the meantime, Katherine’s cousin Nita has come to stay. She is a bit of a Know-It-All, and she is suspicious that Katherine is hiding something. The Balloon seems to have an aversion to bottles, so Nita comes up with her theory that there is a poltergeist in the house, after several bottles smash while she’s holding them. Katherine accidentally discovers that tying a knot in the Balloon leaves it powerless, but Nita while snooping around, unties it and is carried off by the Balloon.
Katherine goes to stay with her aunt in London, while there she visits a professor for advice. Katherine has the Balloon string knotted again, to keep it powerless but the professor unties it and is carried off by the Balloon. Later at her aunts flat, Katherine loses her temper with the Balloon, after he smashes a precious vase of her aunts. It fixes the vase, so Katherine again thinks it can’t be all bad. Katherine gets arrested, due to suspicion of involvement with the professor’s disappearance. The Balloon causes more trouble by stealing a plane with the Prime Minister on board. He then breaks Katherine out of jail and she finally gets to communicate with the Balloon, previous to this it had started writing messages, but now it actually talks. Apparently it hasn’t spoken before as “words are weapons of your world”. Katherine points out all the destruction it’s caused, it apparently can’t help the destruction because it is in conflict with our world’s elements. It needs to be attached to a human and not be rejected to stay in control. It does try and redeem itself by saving a family trapped in a fire.
It then takes her to a mountain where Nita, the professor and the Prime Minister and all the other passengers are all safe. The Balloon is actually a little alien, who’s ship crashed on the way to Venus. His whole alien race were relocating in a small ship filled with bottles. He took the form of the balloon to fit in on earth, but if he got trapped in any bottle he would be helpless, which is why he was scared of bottles. He needs to trust Katherine to put him in the ships spare phial and lock it into the correct position to re-power the ship. Katherine does this and he flies away, thanking her. A rescue helicopter arrives soon after that.
The art is great, the balloon really feels threatening, especially in the larger panels when it is given more space. Often the Balloon takes up the majority of the panel, making it look like a very looming threat. Also very effective, is in its original printing, the use of red on the balloon really makes it stand out. Something of note is the reprinted Lucky Charm version is just all black and white and there are some slight changes. Obviously the recap boxes are gone as it is told in one story, but there is also some dialogue missing as well, nothing major, but interesting to note the differences. One example of this is when Katherine is thinking “It’s following us! I knew it was evil. But where is it from?” the next line; “And what is it’s sinister plan?” is left out.
The first half of the story does great at building up the balloon as a serious threat. Even Katherine’s dreams about a genie are quite creepy. In her dream she tries to make a wish and the genie tells her he can’t grant any good wishes as he is an evil genie. Parallel to this Sarah has the Balloon grant her wishes but these involve stealing and hurting dogs! The Balloon continues to look sinister and cause destruction. So after all that has happened in the first part of the story, it’s a bit jarring to have him turn into a misunderstood character that we are supposed to feel sorry for. When he attacks a helicopter with Katherine in it, his expression looking down on the wreckage is clearly him looking pleased. The pilot dies in this crash, so basically by the end of the story we are meant to sympathise with a killer!
All his actions are supposed to be explained away, as being in conflict with earth’s element makes him destructive. But this again doesn’t explain Sarah’s actions. If a human grounds him, then why was she acting so malicious? Either Sarah was too young to ground him and was being influenced by his (unintentional) destructive nature or else she is just a brat on her own! There is no resolution for this plot point, as suddenly Sarah gets a tummy ache and is never seen again.
Some other plot issues, is the Balloon/alien’s unwillingness to communicate at first, with the vague reasoning that words are destructive, when he’s been going around destroying houses and killing people. Also towards the end, the Balloon takes the plane with the Prime Minister which really seems unnecessary. The only thing it contributes to the story, is that the rescue helicopter at the end finds Katherine and the others after seeing the plane on the mountain. I’m sure there was another way around getting Katherine and Nita rescued.
It’s some of those plot points that makes me think that initially the story was going in a different direction and the writer/editor decided to change it partway through for some reason. I do find it amusing that such an ominous looking balloon turns out to be a very cute looking alien! I do like a lot of the bizarre elements in this story, the balloon itself, the genie dreams, strange weather and the time the balloon left Katherine in the Sahara desert! The first half of the story is definitely the strongest part but it is still a good read and like I said before the art is great throughout.
Girls comics were full of bullying, blackmail and nasty girls. As evidenced in this interesting article: http://www.booksmonthly.co.uk/bully.html. So I thought I’d take a look at some of these, starting with two similar stories:
Hateful Harriet
Plot
Peg Roberts has to keep Harriet Marlowe out of trouble in school, or else her widowed mother will be fired by middle manager, Mr. Carrick. Harriet has been expelled from many schools, and is sent to live with the Roberts as well. At the same time as this, Peg is competing for a drama scholarship, which also relies on her getting a good character reference from her teachers. Of course Harriet causes Peg all sorts of trouble, and has the teachers fooled that she is a sweet girl. Mrs. Roberts can’t do anything to help as she is also at the beck and call of Harriet. Finally Harriet gets caught out and expelled and Mr. Carrick fires Mrs. Roberts. Luckily for her she gets a job in a travel agents. Harriet is to be sent to school in Switzerland, though she doesn’t seem happy about it. On the day of Peg’s big interview for her scholarship, Harriet is in an accident with a bridge collapse. After Peg misses her interview to save her life, Harriet turns over new leaf and helps Peg get a second chance with the scholarship. She in turn is given a second chance with the school and is allowed to come back.
“Be Nice to Nancy!”
Plot
Yvonne Baxter has to be nice to Nancy Norden (Nikki in the reprint), or she fears her father will lose his job. Nancy is openly nasty and a bully and is not popular at school. This of course causes many troubles for Yvonne as she keeps covering for her. She loses friends and gets in trouble in school. When she tries to explain how nasty Nancy is to her parents, they don’t listen. Only her best friend Maggie knows what’s going on. Eventually Mr. Norden catches Nancy out and he apologises to Yvonne. He was hoping that she would be a good influence on Nancy. He is going to send her to a special school instead and of course Mr. Baxter isn’t going to be fired.
Thoughts
A girl forced to be friends with a nasty girl for fear of a parent’s job is a common theme. There were ,any variations of this theme such as the family’s reputation, rather than a job, being in jeopardy. The link at the start of this post discusses a lot of the different types of bullying that went on in these stories.
Both Hateful Harriet and Be Nice to Nancy have an overall similar storyline. Even their looks correspond with the long blonde hair for the antagonist and the shorter dark hair of the protagonist. Both Harriet and Nancy get up to similar trouble and share a lot of the same personality traits. At the same time Peg and Yvonne both feel helpless and dislike having to cover for the other girls. There are differences though, in how the stories develop and conclude. In the case of Hateful Harriet, Mrs. Brown knows what Harriet is like but not only can she not help Peg she also has to give into Harriet’s demands. (Incidentally this story would not work today, as Mrs. Roberts boss could be charged with wrongful dismissal, at first he wants to fire her because of her age and only keeps her on as long as she keeps his boss’s daughter out of trouble).
Yvonne on the other hand tries to tell her parents what Nancy is like but they don’t listen. Her father in particular keeps the pressure on her to be friendly with Nancy. While Nancy does use this to her advantage, Yvonne seems to feel the most pressure from her father and Mr. Norden rather than Nancy herself. Harriet likes to constantly remind the Roberts that they have to keep her happy.
Harriet does get redeemed in the end but Nancy hasn’t learned her lesson. This contrast could be to do with the way their fathers deal with their daughters. While Nancy’s father is actively trying to help her out (though he may be going about it the wrong way!). Harriet’s father doesn’t appear at all, instead his orders are passed through lower manager Mr. Carrick. Clearly Harriet is not used to people being kind to her for no reason, she seems to be following her father’s behaviour of using power and threats to get what she wants. She is used to being shipped around and her behaviour becomes more understandable when it seems she hasn’t had a very caring home life. When Peg shows her friendship, even after Mrs. Roberts gets a new job and then saves her life, Harriet turns her life around and starts to appreciate her friendship.
Nancy is a less sympathetic character. Mr. Norden does try to help his daughter but he goes about it the wrong way. He puts the pressure on Yvonne to be friends with her thinking that if she is not with a bad crowd then she will be a better person and stay out of trouble. He dosen’t realise that she needs more help than that and that it is unfair to expect Yvonne to be responsible for keeping his daughter on the right path. At least Nancy does get the chance to go to a school that will help her, but she doesn’t have the excuses of Harriet for her bad behaviour.
Hateful Harriet is a bit more dated, and Peg is such a good person that she goes to support Harriet in a play that she should have been lead in (this is after Mrs. Roberts gets her new job). It’s a bit unbelievable that a girl could be this nice! Harriet’s change of heart may be a bit sudden but after a near death experience not unlikely. Be Nice to Nancy is a story that is remembered pretty well so it must have stuck in people’s mind. It is more realistic in it’s portrayal of characters and everything isn’t all wrapped up neatly in the end. Still most importantly the protagonist gets a happy ending, free of Nancy!
It’s interesting to see how a similar theme can develop differently, and of course very telling is the different time periods as they were first published nearly 2 decades apart.
Amy inherits her Great Uncle Harry’s ventriloquist dummy, which surprises her as she didn’t know him that well. What surprises her more though, is when Codey (the dummy) starts talking to her. He gets her in trouble when people think she is throwing her voice, saying nasty things. He wants to make it big, but Amy tries to refuse. He threatens her family, so she has to go along with things.
She unsuccessfully tries to get rid of him a few times, which doesn’t make Codey to happy. It seems he is getting stronger, and has the power to get inside her head and make her say things like she was the Dummy! At a show, she runs into an old man, Mr Morton, who claims Harry stole Codey from him years ago. Codey says horrible things to Morton and the old man collapses. Later Amy goes to visit Mr Morton in hospital, she talks to his daughter who tells her that Codey is a jinx and she should get rid of him. Amy decides to donate him to a museum, but Codey doesn’t want that. Amy puts him down stairs so she won’t have to listen to him all night. The living room catches on fire that night. Luckily Amy and her family escape but Codey is burnt up.
Evil dolls/ventriloquist dummies another common theme for these comics. As I’ve mentioned before, the picture story libraries were more limited in what they could compared to ongoing weekly issues . So a story like Charlie Chatterbox, had more depth to his character and the story had more of a build up to his motivations. Codey is simply evil and there is a lot of unanswered questions in the story.
It is unclear why Uncle Harry left the dummy to Amy in the first place, although it could be because he was still under the influence of Codey. How Codey could not only talk but also make Amy say things and influence her dreams is a mystery. The idea of a dummy making words coming out of someone else, is interesting but it is only used once, so it’s hardly developed. It seems to be a just a throwaway power for the convenience of one scene.
The parents are a bit pushy, they do relent in the end when Amy says she doesn’t want to do ventriloquism anymore, but first they just sign her up for talent contests and don’t even listen to her. So Amy has a hard time, with being scared by Codey and pushed by her parents. She does try to stand up for herself at times and she is concerned about keeping her family safe, but a lot of time she just seems helpless.
Codey’s motives just seem to be to get famous, but he doesn’t help himself by being rude and sometimes nasty to everyone including the agents that are there to help him. There is no potential nice side to him. He is just nasty and evil. His act usually involves him being cruel. He doesn’t want to end up in a museum, but you’d think if he was that powerful he could find some way around it, he sat up in Harry’s attic for so long, you’d thing he had patience. Somehow he throws himself on to the electric fire, so he can avoid going to museum and probably hopes to take whole family with him.
I quite like the cover art, it is not crowded and looks interesting, the dummy looks mean and creepy. The art inside isn’t bad but again, I think “Charlie Chatterbox” made better use of shadows and angles to make a dummy seem bigger and more threatening. Codey is a menacing character and the story isn’t bad but it is a story that has been done better before.
A girl named Mary, of course, has a pet lamb. Lenny the lamb gets injured and is rebuilt by vet scientists. They have the technology, the capability to build the world’s first bionic lamb. Better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster. Along with being super fast and strong, Lenny has heat powers, x-ray vision and once after being hit by lightning he became super magnetic for a while. He gets Mary into trouble sometimes but usually everything works out for the best in the end. In one instance he gets trapped in a school oven, he breaks out destroying the oven. Luckily the Home Economics teacher, Miss Dixon, is glad as she can get the school to invest in a new cooker!
Lenny gets into trouble again when he gets hold of a hang-glider, Mary grabs hold of him to try and stop him but they are both swept up into the sky. They crash into a tree and Mary is left hanging on for her life. Lenny cuts the tree down and takes the brunt of the tree falling in order to save Mary. She takes him to the vet who says he has exhausted his bionic powers and he’ll just be an ordinary lamb now, though never growing old. But as Mary walks him home, Lenny turns invisible. It seems that he has gained other powers to make up for his lost ones! So the story ends on the possibility of more adventures with Lenny.
Making a character, bionic, was a popular way to gain powers. Supergirl (Bunty’s version, not Superman’s cousin!) also had a similar origin. At times Lenny gets to be a hero, he helps capture some burglars and joy-riders.
For the most part though Lenny’s powers are not used for super-heroics. He is often just mischievous. Causing trouble in the first place. It is a fun story and ridiculous (in a good way). The ending doesn’t really make a lot of sense, as super strength, speed and even x-ray vision seem possible after bionic enhancements, but I’ve never heard of bionic invisibility! But this is a world where you leave all thoughts of reality behind and just enjoy the fun. The lamb is cutely drawn, and the art throughout is good.
Mary’s main purpose seems to be tying to keep Lenny, and herself, out of trouble and giving exposition on his powers. So she doesn’t get a whole lot of character arc, but she shows how much she cares about Lenny, when she tries to protect him and is concerned when he is sick. She also knows when to use his powers to his advantage, such as helping her carry newspapers and with mowing the lawn. As well as that she continues the tradition of being a Bunty character, that reads Bunty!
Other Appearances
Annual Appearances
Summer Specials
Picture Story Library
Hope Street – Bunty PSL: #403 (1995)Plot
In 1898, Dr Benjamin Osborne is dying and his family gather around him. They include his wife, his brother, his son and 2 daughters. He is pleased with his son’s career as a ship’s doctor and that he has lived to see his daughter Caroline qualify to become a doctor, but he worries he will not be able to guide Hannah his youngest daughter. She promises to keep up the family tradition and study medicine.
Caroline is in for a difficult time with her chosen profession, as after her father dies she does not get support from her uncle or mother. Hubert does not hire her on at the family practice as he believes it is not suitable job for a woman, Her mother agrees with him, especially as she thinks her husband was sent to an early grave because of his career. Caroline doesn’t have any better luck outside her family either. She gets rejected by all the jobs she applies for. One of the maids, Dolly points out there is plenty of work at a poorer end of town, even if they can’t pay much. Caroline takes her advice and buys a warehouse on Hope Street to set up a clinic.
After a slow start, Caroline and Hannah are soon kept busy with patients. They get a visit from Edgar, the doctor that Herbert has hired and he seems taken with Caroline. When Mrs. Osborne finds out about the clinic she and Caroline fight leading to Caroline moving out. Hannah and Caroline blame Edgar for their mother finding out, but it is actually a servant who accidentally let it slip. Hannah helps out secretly at the clinic but it is clear that Caroline, who is now living at the clinic, is overworked. When Edgar helps out with a factory owner problem, Caroline starts to soften up to him and accepts his help at the clinic.
Hannah comes up with a plan to reconcile her mother and Caroline, by tricking them into meeting up. On the way to the meeting there is an explosion in the underground, Caroline rushes to help and included in the crash is Mrs. Osborne. Other than a sprained ankle, she is fine and is also very proud of Caroline’s achievements after this incident. Caroline is considered a heroine, and Mrs. Osborne supports the clinic. She is also delighted to see it named for Benjamin.
Thoughts
For the historic context; the 1800s was a time when women began to study as doctors. Elizabeth Garrett Anderson was the first female doctor to qualify in the UK, though she obtained her medical degree in Paris after getting refused in England, she then set up medical school for women and continued to campaign for women doctors, in 1876 an act was passed that allowed women to enter the medical profession. So historically it is accurate that Caroline could become a doctor but as it was just 20 years after this act it is expected that there was still prejudice against women doctors.
Even though she is met with obstacles in pursuing her career, she seems to set up her own clinic with ease. Presumably Caroline was left money by her father after his death but not only is able to buy the warehouse quite quickly, she also converts it into a clinic and maintains medical supplies. The poorer people pay with what they can, (sometimes they even pay with food) so she most have a good source of money backing her up. Though they do end up looking for contributions to help the clinic by end of the book.
The uncle seems like he could be villainous, he has a bit of a sinister look about him in the first panel, but he’s actually not very antagonistic. Other than refusing Caroline a place in the family practice he hardly appears in the story. As a contrast the young Edgar, is more open minded about women doctors, he is shown as very compassionate and is admiring of Caroline. After so much rejection and discrimination, Caroline is very slow to trust him.
Caroline is a commendable strong character. She is hard working, caring and stands up for what she believes in. Of course these characteristics can lead to her flaws; as being stubborn and slow to accept help and admit weakness. So she is a well rounded character. She is not the main character though as the story is told mostly from the point of view of the younger sister Hannah. She gets to strike the balance of both worlds. She helps at the clinic, she has the ambition to follow this career path and she clearly admires Caroline. At the same time she sees her struggle, she is more willing to encourage Edgar to help. She can see her mother’s reasoning of it being hard work and also sees that Caroline and her mother are both similar in their stubbornness.
It’s an interesting story, good characters, while a main plot is a woman struggling to find acceptance in a male dominated profession, it is also focused on the family drama along with it. There are some dramatic moments, like the train crash, and the confrontation at the factory to keep it more exciting. The art is good throughout, I particularly like the detail that went into the crash scene.
Plot
A Four Marys story where Cotty catches a viral infection which causes her to lose her hearing. Her parents want to send her away to a special school to cope, but with the Marys support, Cotty convinces them that she can stay on at St. Elmos. The girls start to study sign language, Cotty learns to lip read, the school changes the tv to have subtitles and Creef makes sure to write things on the board. Mabel and Veronica are also eager to help out as they feel responsible as Veronica purposely sneezed on Cotty. They are unconvinced when the Marys tell them its completely unrelated. Even though the snobs are being friendly and trying to help, they end up causing more trouble for Cotty. Veronica tunes Cotty’s violin before a concert causing great embarrassment to Cotty, who can’t hear its out of tune. They also annoy Cotty to an extent, that she insists she can go meet the others on her own. This is bad luck as a fire drill goes off while she is on her own.
Of course Cotty’s parents arrive and are not happy; if it was a real fire Cotty could have been killed. So Cotty has to leave. The new girl that takes her place is Mary Smith, and though its not the same as old times, the girls do get along well with Smithy and they start their usual adventures, rescuing puppies and fundraising. Just when things seem to be settling in Smithy’s father gets a job in Australia and she has to move. The Marys are disappointed and worried about who her replacement will be. They are surprised to find Cotty back. Turns out the deafness was just temporary. The snobs are dismissive of her taking advantage, so back to their old ways and everything is back to normal.
Thoughts
This is one of the many PSL books the Marys were featured in. There was about 15 of these PSL stories. This was also a book with a Four Marys symbol, that was used before but not regularly, the last 3 Four Marys PSL books all had this symbol.
Interestingly Cotty nearly leaves St. Elmos for a music academy in another story in the weekly issues. She is also replaced by a girl called Mary but she isn’t as nice as Smithy is in this story. In fact she becomes friends with the snobs. It could have been interesting to see one of the Marys replaced permanently, though shocking as well! Smithy doesn’t get much time for characterisation but appears to fit in well with the group
Cotty seems to pick up lip reading quickly which can’t be that easy. Also lip reading is made harder that phonemes can often be visually the same. Adjusting to a new disability would take more time than depicted in this story, but it is nice to see the effort the girls and the school make, to help with the adjustment. The snobs trying to be nice is amusing, they are even happy when Smithy joins up. It’s a story that concentrates a lot on the girls friendships, and even if the snobs make things difficult, there is no antagonist here. Strangely, even though it is Cotty that is having to adapt to her new life, the story is shown more from the other Marys perspective. There is the time where Cotty decides she has enough of Mabel and Veronica and goes to practice music on her own, but other than that it’s mainly the other girls making the effort to ensure Cotty is settling back in and then getting used to Cotty being gone. Of course, everything is back to the status quo by the end of the story.
Published: Bunty (PSL): #345Plot
The Four Marys are enjoying their Summer holidays, when they find out that St. Elmos has been vandalised. Miss Mitchell had allowed some troubled girls from a reform school to use St. Elmo’s over the summer. Unfortunately the girls decided to wreck the place and one of the girls is now missing. The Marys ring each other and they all agree they should go back to school and help clean up. Miss Mitchell and Creefy along with some other students all work hard to get the school opened quickly again. The Marys are surprised when Veronica and Mabel show up, but of course they are not there to help, they only to see if that they read was true and what a state the school is in. Soon the school is ready for reopening.
Later when the Marys are in town, they see a girl in a school blazer throw a brick through a window of a new building named Dodds. It turns out Dodd is a developer that bought some woodland that used to belong to St. Elmos 20 years ago, not realising some by-laws prevented him from building houses there. But Mabel’s father has discovered there is nothing stopping him building non-residential places, like small factory units. The girls are horrified to hear this, especially when big fences are put up around the wood and lake. Later Cotty and Simpy find Dodd’s hut on fire and a girl with a blazer running away. They raise the alarm in time, before the fire spreads to the wood.
Meanwhile around the school things keep going missing like food, blankets and Creefy is missing a book. The girls tell Miss Creef their suspicions that it may be the runaway delinquent taking these things. Miss Creef agrees though she doesn’t think she took her book because what would a girl like that want with a bird book. Later Raddy notices something suspicious in one of the sheds, she goes to investigate only to be confronted by the missing girl, Ros. She tells Raddy her parents sent her to reform school because of her quick temper and that her and the other girls smashed up S. Elmo’s because they don’t like wealthy people and how the privileged few can buy an education. Raddy tells her that not true and that there are lots of scholarship girls at St. Elmos. They get talking more it turns out Ros is upset at Dodd’s plans disturbing the wildlife and that she took Creefy’s book to confirm that there are rare birds nesting by the lake. Meanwhile the other Marys are beginning to worry about Raddy. They soon find her and Ros gets taken away by the police.
Raddy tells the others about the birds on the lake, but Dodd gets in guard dogs to scare off the birds. Things aren’t looking great until Simpy says something that reminds Raddy of a document she read over the Summer. It turns out one of the conditions of the sale to Dodd is that there is unrestricted access to the Lake for fishing rights on application to the owner. This will lapse after 10 years if there is no application, they find this out the day before its due to lapse. So they save the lake, though Mr Lentham spins it so he looks like the good guy.
Thoughts
I find that these picture story library books, can be rushed at times or not properly edited. The story itself is fine, but some of the art is inconsistent. When we first see a girl throw a brick through Dodd’s window, she has long light hair, later when Raddy meets Ros she has shorter dark hair. Worse than this, is Mabel and Veronica switch hair colours half-ways through the story. Other than that the art is good, and it is fun to see the Marys drawn by a different artist than the usual.
The story itself is a typical Four Marys story, with them saving the school and being the ones to find the missing girl, etc. That’s not a bad thing though, it is a good story and there are some nice moments, like Simpy going after Cotty to comfort her after she gets upset about the lake being filled in and Mabel being nasty about it. I also liked Raddy and Ros talk and thought it was a good choice to have Raddy, the rich girl, talking to Ros, rather than someone like Simpy, a scholarship girl. Also glad it didn’t have Ros completely reform after the talk, but it does have Raddy sympathising with her and telling the others she’s not all bad.
The ending is a bit of a cliche. Just when they are about to lose a conveniently previously forgotten law saves the day. Its also funny that these laws are always just about to go out of date too, just to add a last minute rush and excitement
