Growing up in conservative, postwar Australia isn't easy. For eight-year-old Sophie, who has just been told that she's a bastard, it seems that she lives in a world of secrets, unanswered questions and whispers.
Who is her father and why did her mother never tell anyone who he was?
With only her reclusive grandfather to raise her, and more than one neighbour expecting her to go off the rails like her mother after all, apples rarely fall far from the tree Sophie struggles to find her place in the world.
In a time when experiences are shared around the kitchen table, over the back fence or up at the corner shop, Sophie learns that life is rarely simple, love is always complicated and sometimes it takes more than blood ties to make a family.
heart-warming novel
“The groundswell of well-meaning support touched her almost as much as it irked her at the same time. Even though she’d had plenty of experience of it, she never found it easy when her life was up for public discussion.”
It Takes a Village is the second novel by Australian author, Christine Stinson. Eight-year-old Sophie Barton lives with her Grandpa, Harry in a house at 5 Fleming St, Kingsdale. The lady next door, Mrs Hogan (Dulcie) often helps out when Grandpa is working because Sophie’s mother, Sarah died when Sophie was very little, and her Grandma died not long after. No-one ever mentions Sophie’s father; at least, not until that nasty Luc Dimarco calls her a dirty bastard. None of the girls at school will play with her. Her best (and only) friend, Mick Knight lives just down the road and they do everything together.
It’s 1952 and Sophie does her best to look after her Grandpa and to be good, but it seems some of the neighbours are ready to saddle her with the same bad reputation they stamped on her mother. As she grows up, Harry’s reclusive nature ensures that much of the neighbourhood has an influence on Sophie’s development, but conflicting opinions mean that her confusion about both her mother and her father increases. Sophie’s voice is genuine and Stinson gives her realistic life experiences that many female readers of a certain vintage will easily relate to.
Stinson peoples her novel with a cast of characters typical of post-war suburbia: the disapproving spinster sisters; the snobbish school mothers; the melancholy alcoholic widower; the gossipy sticky-beak; the friendly shopkeeper; the well-meaning neighbours; the funny, easy-going dads. Most of the neighbours are, despite their many faults, easy to love. Stinson renders 1950s Australia with consummate ease: the attitudes about pre-marital sex, immigrants, mental illness, war service, the raising and disciplining of children and the education of women accurately reflect the times, as does the dialogue.
This heart-warming novel is part mystery (just who is Sophie’s father?), part coming of age, part romance, a moving and uplifting tale that portrays a supportive community of the sort that once were common and may still exist somewhere. Highly recommended.
Marianne, 23/11/2014
