the growing-up Maria, who benefits from her interactions with the Fosters to find a more wide-awake and confident version of herself. ?ÃƒÂ¡There's the young Maria now, kind of moody and withdrawn, almost unpleasant, vs. the Fosters, with lots of kids and liveliness. ?ÃƒÂ¡There's Maria's family, with their only child and their quiet family, vs. ?ÃƒÂ¡There's the time of Harriet, the girl from a century ago who lives in the house Maria's family is renting, vs. ?ÃƒÂ¡For example, one thing I did see (but never would have if I'd read this earlier) was the *L*iterary theme of contrast. There's a lot going on that a more serious reader/critic/English major would appreciate I'm sure I'm not getting it all. It's subtle, and though it rather hints that there will be either time travel or a ghost, there really isn't any of either, except sort of in Maria's imagination.

?áBut, even though I was a quiet and sensitive child, I would not have done so forty years ago, when I was Maria's age. Some of the experiences and feelings of a family holiday in the 1970s at the seaside rang true to me as a child of that decade (though we went elsewhere and my visits to Lyme Regis have all been in my middle age)! ( ) The story is well written and describes the environment of Lyme Regis, a town I love, very well, particularly the fossils in the rocks, which prompt Maria to see the past as being preserved in the present and, in a sense, still continuing alongside contemporary events.

She gets to hear more about Harriet, a girl of her own age, who lived in the house in the nineteenth century, and gets increasingly confused between the events of the two ages, though it isn't entirely clear whether this is a timeslip or a vivid imagination. Maria Foster is an 11 year old girl on holiday with her parents in Lyme Regis, staying in old Victorian house, where she hears a swing creaking and a dog barking that no one else can hear. This is a classic children's mystery story written and set in the 1970s. I'm trying to read books with lighter themes during the current emergency.

A stitch in time book penelope lively