Bookwitch

I’m very pleased I didn’t read Sonya Hartnett’s Thursday’s Child first, as suggested. If I had, I’m not sure I could have helped but feel a bit let down when I read Sonya’s other books afterwards. That doesn’t sound right, does it? The other two books I’ve read so far are very, very good, but Thursday’s Child is that much more special. Not quite sure how to describe it or rate it. It has something very unusual about it.

It’s possible Sonya was born in the wrong age. Thursday’s Child is not only about the Depression, but it feels like it came from that period as well. I’m not often all that observant when it comes to style and language, but with Sonya you can’t help but notice. And I just wonder how she knows all these things. (And don’t say research and imagination.)

Thursday’s Child is about a family living in barren countryside during the 1920s, and by 1930 things haven’t exactly improved for them. The story starts with the birth of their fifth (live) child, and the effect that day has on the child before him, Thursday’s child. It’s all seen through the eyes of the child before him in turn, the girl Harper who is seven at he time.

I didn’t know you could live for so long on rabbits and dust, but that’s what the family does. The subject matter could be quite dreary, but somehow the book is very uplifting, all things considered. I did have a witchy feel about how it might end, somewhere at the beginning, but soon forgot about that thought. It stopped being important, and it was simply interesting to see how they lived. And it’s good to have Australia as the backdrop. We should read more foreign books.