Latest Read: A Traveller in Time

A lot of negative things are said about online friendships. I often hear people showing disdain for Twitter and Facebook, claiming that they prefer “real people” rather than a never changing photograph that has to say everything in 140 characters. They laugh when they hear someone say that it’s time to “clear out their friends on Facebook”. I suppose there is some truth in this viewpoint. Every Facebook user has friends that they hardly know. I certainly do. A student who does one class adds me as a friend. Someone who agrees with something I wrote on Goodreads sends me a friend request. Yes, these are not friends in the traditional sense of the word or maybe not even friends at all. But that does not mean that everyone you meet online is just a face on the screen. To me, online friendships have been a lifeline. I love books, and down here in Brazil where hardly anyone speaks English and no one reads the kind of books that I do, the only way to talk about reading is online. For years, I had no one to talk to about the books I enjoy. I’ve worked at English schools, but the other teachers seldom read fiction in English, preferring to concentrate on books about ELT. So, when the internet came on the scene, I welcomed it gratefully. During the Lord of the Rings craze in 2001, I was online chatting every day. But it was only after I started the Jane Shaw blog that I started to meet people who enjoy a wider range of stories. There have been five people in particular: Pam from South Africa, Jan from Scotland, Ruth from Scotland, Pamela from the USA and Elizabeth from Australia. Recently, I’ve been having a nice correspondence with Elizabeth, who has a PhD in literature and has read tons of books. She recommended some of the best reads I’ve enjoyed this year, including An Australian Lassie by Lilian Turner and The Girl from the Big Horn Country by Mary Ellen Chase. Another book that she told me about was the one I finished reading yesterday, A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley, published in 1939. I’d never heard of this book, but I soon discovered that it has been enjoyed by generations of readers. It is classified as a young adult novel, although the level of vocabulary is quite advanced.

It is an interesting story about a girl called Penelope who believes that she lives in two time periods simultaneously. She was born in the late Victorian age, but finds herself being transported back to the time of Mary Queen of Scots in the 1580s and becoming embroiled in a plot to rescue the queen and smuggle her over to France. Of course, the outcome of this doomed plot is known from the start, so the focus of the story is on the characters. It is a very well written book and the author shows great skill when wielding her pen. It is interesting because when you finish reading it you are left wondering. Was she actually slipping through time or was she dreaming or imagining it all? In my opinion, it was either a vivid imagination or an illusion. But who knows? A very intense book. Not a page-turner, and few cliff-hangers. This is a book to savour and enjoy. I certainly did. An interesting comment that I read on Goodreads about this book was by a woman called Hannah. She said: "Absolutely enchanting YA novel. I only wish I had read it as a young girl so that I could have fond memories of it!"