To quote the blurb on the back cover:
“At seventeen, Rose is
convinced no one will ever love her, living as she does in the shadow of her
beautiful older sister, Diana. If Diana
is the swan, Rose is the ugly duckling.
But for both girls this is going to be an extraordinary summer.
It is 1943 and the war
has left its mark even in the sleepy seaside town where the girls have been
sent out of harm’s way. For the first
time in their lives they are free of adult restriction.
For both girls it is a
summer of self-discovery, but especially for Rose who unearths a love story set in another war, a story that
becomes more real when she falls in love herself…”
A Little Love Song is one of my re-reads – the books I
“revisit” every once in a while, to re-experience the pleasure of reading
again. It’s also perhaps my favourite
Michelle Magorian work to date. Whilst
Magorian revisits familiar territory in terms of the setting for her narrative
with the war time theme, there are a number of respects in which this novel
differs from those which precede it.
Rose is noticeably older than either of the main protagonists to whom we
have previously been introduced, William Beech or “Rusty” Virginia Dickinson in
Good Night Mister Tom or Back Home respectively at seventeen. Consequentially, the reader is introduced to
altogether new emotional territory. Nor
is Magorian reticent to delve into these depths.
Through Derry, the local bookshop owner’s teenage cousin,
Rose takes her first faltering steps towards a relationship and we see this
rebound as she is tricked into a sexual relationship and her emotions are
played upon, with Derry referring on a number of occasions to the fact that he
is go off to war from which he might not return. Away from parental supervision, Rose also finds
herself associating with an unmarried mother to be, Dot, who was unable to
marry her boyfriend, Jack, due to her father’s having withheld his consent.
Balanced neatly with these aspects of the narrative arc,
Rose discovers the events which preceded it within the village of Salmouth and particularly those affecting Lapwing
Cottage, the residence both she and her sister, Diana are renting and which had
previously belonged to the locally infamous “Mad Hilda”. Having discovered “Mad” Hilda’s diary and a letter
which appears to encourage the reader to review the diary’s contents, Rose
begins to appreciate that matters are not always as simplistic as they may at
first appear and, indeed, that “Mad” Hilda may not in fact have been mad at
all… A moment of self-realisation
confirms that, ultimately, it is “Mad” Hilda’s diary which prevents her from
disassociating herself from Dot and allowing their friendship to develop and
another, equally important, relationship to grow. Furthermore, “Mad” Hilda’s diary takes on
even greater significance once Rose realises it holds more than just the secret
of Hilda’s sanity and has particular significance for someone with whom she is
acquainted in the present.
Rose begins the narrative as an inexperienced and relatively
naïve teenager who has never had to fend for herself. By its conclusion, she has taken on
employment and action to involve herself actively in the war effort. Furthermore, she has developed the confidence
to begin to write and she is engaged in a genuine, adult relationship. Ultimately, the mistakes she makes along the
way make this journey all the more credible.
Not only that, but the self-sworn “ugly duckling” has become a more
self-assured and “darling” goose to her love and we, the reader, are happy for
her for it. Ultimately, happy does not
have to mean absolute perfection – it simply means becoming self-aware and
comfortable within our own skin; a pretty positive message to end Rose’s
journey with - and ours with her.
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