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A Little Learning
A Little Learning [Paperback] Bennett, Anne
- GenresHistorical
496 pages, Paperback
First published February 4, 1999
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195 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
September 22, 2018
Enjoyed this storyline but it had not a great ending.
February 5, 2018
I had never come across Anne Bennett (or her books!) before but she seems to be a fairly prolific saga writer. Apparently A Little Learning was her first foray into this genre, first published in 1997.
Janet grew up in a working class family in post-war Birmingham. Her family had very traditional attitudes regarding a woman’s place in society. Her father in particular believed that women should get married, stay at home, look after their husbands and raise children. Her mother, however, was persuaded by her forward-thinking sister to take a job in a local factory to earn money to help with the family finances. Meanwhile Claire, a teacher at Janet’s school, saw real academic potential in her and took her under her wing. Despite protestations from her father, Janet became determined to make something of herself and, in the face of adversity, but with the support of her mother, passed her eleven-plus and got a scholarship to the local grammar school. She struggled to fit in with the other pupils who all came from more privileged backgrounds and she was bullied unmercifully. She sticks with it and eventually finds solace by befriending a Jewish girl who is also having problems with her peers at school. This book is the story of what happens next. Janet’s life is not easy - she is surrounded by prejudices of all sorts, she falls in love with the wrong people and she has to deal with pain and loss but she perseveres in the face of adversity.
The book is a very easy holiday read but has little real content. For me, that was a problem as I found that it dragged at times and even became boring. It is a nice enough story but I felt I wanted a bit more depth to keep my interest. I also found that the language didn’t flow as easily as it might have.
On the plus side, despite the numerous difficulties encountered by Janet in her quest to achieve independence, there is a feel-good aspect to the story which is never a bad thing as far as I am concerned. Janet is also a believable character who is developed well enough to make the reader really want her to succeed.
Whilst it is unlikely that I will be actively searching for other books by Anne Bennett, I would not object if one appeared on my pile of current reading matter. Assuming her other books are similar in style to this one, I think they will be quite popular with people looking for an easy, unchallenging read.
Janet grew up in a working class family in post-war Birmingham. Her family had very traditional attitudes regarding a woman’s place in society. Her father in particular believed that women should get married, stay at home, look after their husbands and raise children. Her mother, however, was persuaded by her forward-thinking sister to take a job in a local factory to earn money to help with the family finances. Meanwhile Claire, a teacher at Janet’s school, saw real academic potential in her and took her under her wing. Despite protestations from her father, Janet became determined to make something of herself and, in the face of adversity, but with the support of her mother, passed her eleven-plus and got a scholarship to the local grammar school. She struggled to fit in with the other pupils who all came from more privileged backgrounds and she was bullied unmercifully. She sticks with it and eventually finds solace by befriending a Jewish girl who is also having problems with her peers at school. This book is the story of what happens next. Janet’s life is not easy - she is surrounded by prejudices of all sorts, she falls in love with the wrong people and she has to deal with pain and loss but she perseveres in the face of adversity.
The book is a very easy holiday read but has little real content. For me, that was a problem as I found that it dragged at times and even became boring. It is a nice enough story but I felt I wanted a bit more depth to keep my interest. I also found that the language didn’t flow as easily as it might have.
On the plus side, despite the numerous difficulties encountered by Janet in her quest to achieve independence, there is a feel-good aspect to the story which is never a bad thing as far as I am concerned. Janet is also a believable character who is developed well enough to make the reader really want her to succeed.
Whilst it is unlikely that I will be actively searching for other books by Anne Bennett, I would not object if one appeared on my pile of current reading matter. Assuming her other books are similar in style to this one, I think they will be quite popular with people looking for an easy, unchallenging read.
May 17, 2018
A good three stars but it did go on a bit! It should have been a bit shorter- too much angst between Janet and Simon!
August 3, 2019
Slow but enticing story
December 19, 2020
Started this, but could not get I to it. Shame as I usually have no trouble with Anne’s books.
October 26, 2021
Another great Anne Bennett story
June 30, 2023
The ending was not what I expected.
July 30, 2014
This tale of a bright girl in Birmingham is set just after WW2 and follows her life from the eleven-plus to student teaching.
Janet is determined to follow the example set by her own class teacher and study to make something of herself, instead of being chained to a sink with a baby a year like most women. Her mother and aunt support her but her father unsurprisingly says education is wasted on girls and should be given to boys. A girl will only marry early and stay home.
Scraping along with a scholarship and a separate grant to help with expensive school uniform, Janet is resented and jeered at by other girls in her new class. However she works hard at school. She befriends another lonely misfit, Ruth, a Jewish girl whose family has lost everything not once but twice. Ruth has a brother called Ben who thinks Janet would be the right sort of wife for a doctor. Janet falls for him but she still intends to qualify and teach after school, and then there's the fact of his being Jewish and her a Catholic to contend with....
I would have liked to see what Janet was actually learning, but we don't get that; not what Shakespearean play, whether she took advanced language classes, or whether her course included philosophy for instance. The personal side is all we see.
I thought the first half of the book was the strongest and the latter lost some depth and became a mere recounting of events. Janet had all my sympathy at the start but had lost a good deal of it by the end. Not that all events were her fault, when we can see the different entrenched attitudes in different strands of society. Life was very hard and people had to struggle, sometimes stepping on other people, to get on. This book also looks at a child with what was then called mongolism, the early efforts of Montessori teaching and their effects on these children.
A Little Learning was the first story from this author, and you may also be interested in Chocolate Girls by Anne Murray about the chocolate factory workers in Birmingham.
Janet is determined to follow the example set by her own class teacher and study to make something of herself, instead of being chained to a sink with a baby a year like most women. Her mother and aunt support her but her father unsurprisingly says education is wasted on girls and should be given to boys. A girl will only marry early and stay home.
Scraping along with a scholarship and a separate grant to help with expensive school uniform, Janet is resented and jeered at by other girls in her new class. However she works hard at school. She befriends another lonely misfit, Ruth, a Jewish girl whose family has lost everything not once but twice. Ruth has a brother called Ben who thinks Janet would be the right sort of wife for a doctor. Janet falls for him but she still intends to qualify and teach after school, and then there's the fact of his being Jewish and her a Catholic to contend with....
I would have liked to see what Janet was actually learning, but we don't get that; not what Shakespearean play, whether she took advanced language classes, or whether her course included philosophy for instance. The personal side is all we see.
I thought the first half of the book was the strongest and the latter lost some depth and became a mere recounting of events. Janet had all my sympathy at the start but had lost a good deal of it by the end. Not that all events were her fault, when we can see the different entrenched attitudes in different strands of society. Life was very hard and people had to struggle, sometimes stepping on other people, to get on. This book also looks at a child with what was then called mongolism, the early efforts of Montessori teaching and their effects on these children.
A Little Learning was the first story from this author, and you may also be interested in Chocolate Girls by Anne Murray about the chocolate factory workers in Birmingham.
July 27, 2010
Started this one last night ... wow, imagine a time when secondary education for girls was not a given. However a little voice inside me, says ... there are still parts of the world which have this idealogy.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews