Odd Girl Out

by Joan Lingard

Fourteen-year-old Ellen resists in her own particular way when her widowed mother's remarriage and subsequent move to a suburban bungalow take her away from her friends and her sloppy, easygoing way of life

Genres: Fiction

187 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Joan Lingard was born in Edinburgh, in the Old Town, but grew up in Belfast where she lived until she was 18. She attended Strandtown Primary and then got a scholarship into Bloomfied Collegiate. She has three daughters and five grandchildren, and now lives in Edinburgh with her Canadian husband.

Lingard has written novels for both adults and children. She is probably most famous for the teenage-aimed Kevin and Sadie series, which have sold over one million copies and have been reprinted many times since.

Her first novel Liam's Daughter was an adult-orientated novel published in 1963. Her first children's novel was The Twelfth Day of July (the first of the five Kevin and Sadie books) in 1970.

Lingard received the prestigious West German award the "Buxtehuder Bulle" in 1986 for Across the Barricades. Tug of War has also received great success: shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal 1989, The Federation of Children's Book Group Award 1989, runner up in the Lancashire Children's Book Club of the year 1990 and shortlisted for the Sheffield Book Award. In 1998, her book Tom and the Tree House won the Scottish Arts Council Children's Book Award. Her most recent novel, What to Do About Holly was released in August 2009.

Lingard was awarded an MBE in 1998 for services to children's literature.

Reviews

[P. · Rating 3 out of 5]

this is part of my Edinburgh-set Reading Series. Primarily an emotional-upheaval plotline, not the Drama that they're trying to sell readers on the cover flap, and there's nothing wrong with emotional-upheaval, so why lie? Poor old Gooseberry Ellie is true to herself even though she doesn't really know what that means just yet, and her mom has to go and marry some boring old guy who sells insurance and lives in a bungalow, taking E. away from her street and her friends and her father figure, an old Czech pianist who is giving her lessons. A satisfying entry to my reading list.

[Catriona · Rating 5 out of 5]

Possibly my favourite childhood book. One of, anyway.