Our Australian Girl: Alice And The Apple Blossom Fair

Our Australian Girl - Alice #2

by Davina Bell

It's 1918 . . .

and Alice has never felt lonelier. Her father is missing at sea, her brother Teddy is away at war, and she's not allowed to speak to her best friend anymore. Alice tries to forget her worries by having a stall at the Apple Blossom Fair. But when strange events start happening in the town, everything goes wrong . . . Will the war ever be over, and will life for Alice ever be the same again?



Follow Alice on her adventure in the second of four stories about a gifted girl in a time of war. 

Genres: Childrens, Historical Fiction, Middle Grade, War, Australia, Fiction, Family

136 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 26, 2012

About the author

Davina Bell is a writer for young people of many ages, and a children’s book editor. Her award-winning and Notable picture books include All the Ways To Be Smart, All of the Factors of Why I Love Tractors, Under the Love Umbrella, The Underwater Fancy-dress Parade, Oh Albert! and Hattie Helps Out. She is also the author of the Alice books in Penguin’s best-selling Our Australian Girl series, the Lemonade Jones series of Junior Fiction, and the Corner Park Clubhouse series (Middle Grade). Her debut young-adult novel will be published in June 2020.

Having been a Senior Editor at Penguin Books, she now works on the children’s list at Affirm Press in Melbourne. A lover of words and ideas in many forms, Davina regularly travels the country, speaking to children and adults about books and writing. The magic of picture books continues to enchant her.

Reviews

[Sienna · Rating 4 out of 5]

So far alice and the apple blossom fair has been the saddest of them all. Teddy went off to war saying he would never come back. People accusing uncle bear of being the vandal. Miss lillybet being taken away to a german camp. Pan dying right at the end. Mrs macnir saying alice isnot aloud near jilly. Mrs macnir telling everyone not to go near alices store at the apple blossom fair. Little drowning and not waking up for days and alice giving up dancing saying she was selfish and not caring for others.

But it all came good. Uncle bear was getting acused by the person who really did it.(douglas) Pan got piosened for a bad course and alice taking the role of talking about how pan is still in their life, the war stpppped after the germans won and alice hopes that teddy came back alive. Alice then realised thst she wasn't selfish and that she was following her dream.

So no matter what you love doing keep doing it and never accuse yourself of something you never did. So Isay,FOLLOW YOUR DREAM!

[Summer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I get that this is fiction but it is historical fiction, not fantasy so I have a hard time believing that a 6 yr old is the primary (gourmet) cook for a family of this size, including making preserves, etc. Overall very average.

[Sarah Loft · Rating 2 out of 5]

Glad this was a read-aloud so I could edit the things that weren't age appropriate out as I went. The idea for the book is good, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. In book two there is scene where the family's dog is poisoned (killed) by a returned soldier, but in my opinion far too much detail is included for the intended audience (8-12 year old girls). This is one of several scenes I found inappropriate for the audience.

[Heidi · Rating 5 out of 5]

My youngest son gives the book a 4.5 star rating because he says the ending is bad!!

[Sally · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one's actually really sad and depressing! Horrible Mrs. MacNair won't let Alice join the knitting group and is all snitchy about how she never wanted to help before, but now her precious brother has signed up she's going to bother... ummmm, bitch, their father has been away at the war for the past few years as well? It's not like the family did NOTHING. And then she forbids Alice from being friends with Jilly! And they're even kept separate at school! And Jilly is such a sop that she doesn't just play with Alice in secret at school, she just totally ignores her and plays with the popular girls. Bitch! But then it gets WORSE. Alice and her siblings decide to have a table at the Apple Blossom Fair, since the proceeds from that will go to the war effort as well. And the head of the Red Cross is delighted to let them join in. They make lovely jams and so on, and have the prettiest stall there is... but then they don't sell a single thing because evil Mrs. MacNair went around telling everyone not to buy from their stall! WHAT THE HELL, LADY. How spiteful is that? These are five children, ranging from ten to three, and she's meant to be a grown-up. And then her son goes and poisons Alice's dog, oh and also it was HER SON who was the town vandal, trying to blame his crimes on Alice's uncle. Jesus! Lots of drama and this loses a star for the callous poisoning of Pan.

Nice touch btw having Lionel Logue as Pudding's speech therapist! I was all HEY, Geoffrey Rush ;) I'm fairly sure that I read somewhere that he didn't return to WA until after the war, so there's a tiny suspension of disbelief here, but give or take a year it's actually pretty feasible.

[Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three and a half stars. This instalment actually has an ending that makes sense, which is a vast improvement. The story is also much more believable, probably because the authoress took the trouble to develop it, not just chop it off when she got tired of writing. She glosses over what should have happened at the end of Book 1 in about two sentences, instead of writing a decent ending for her first book. A couple of paragraphs would have done it.