Playing Beatie Bow by Ruth Park

 During a recent trip to Sydney, I stayed at Darling Harbour and spent one of my days taking a look around The Rocks. I am currently writing about The Rocks and its history.

I've been fascinated with The Rocks area for many years, dating back to my uni days in the early 80's, so much so it has wound up in the novel I am working on.

I enjoyed looking at the terrace homes and the lane ways, some still paved with cobblestones and short door ways. When you look closely you can see lots of indicators of a time gone by. I found, as always, the area completely fascinating with very rich historical fodder.

I took lots of photos and spent the best part of the day immersed in the history of the place, including a trip to the local museum and visiting Argyle Street and all it has to offer.

Terraces found at the Rocks

Learning about some of the locals and the history of the place got me wondering about what it might have been like to live in The Rocks back in the day and what would a child's life consist of?

A view of tight little rear yards that back onto narrow lanes.

During my research I heard about Ruth Park's book, Playing Beatie Bow, so as soon as I returned to Brisbane I searched on iBooks for it and downloaded an ibook version. I read it on my iPad and phone whenever in transit. It was an enjoyable story and one I had not read before. It was great to read so close after visiting the areas, because the names of the streets and places mentioned in the book were fresh to me from my wanderings around the area.

Time travel features in the story of Playing Beatie Bow and I'm totally interested in time travel and always keen to find out how authors who have ever used this concept in their work makes it happen for their characters. The idea Ms Park used satisfied me and made me believe it was feasible that time travel could happen the way it did in her story.

I talked about this book with some of my friends, some who said they had read it many years ago, back in their school days. But I had not even heard of it. How is this so?

When I first downloaded the book, I naturally thought it would be a children's book (I know, you should never judge a book by its cover), but it didn't take me long to realise it was targeted for an older audience; it is listed as a Young Adults book. Ruth Park used her insight and tackled some very realistic issues that many kids of today's society face each and every day, but manages to successfully weave them through a story that involves the issues that children and society faced one hundred years earlier. The comparisons are interesting, especially the view points of the characters from both eras.

A community garden growing down one of the old lanes

Merriman Street, The Rocks