Beswitched

Gr 5—7—Spoiled English schoolgirl Flora Fox, 12, is very vocal in her displeasure at being sent temporarily to Penrice Hall, a fancy boarding school, while her parents prepare to have her cantankerous grandmother come to live with them. On the train to Penrice, Flora has a strange dream and wakes up to find herself in 1935 on her way to another school. Upon arriving at St. Winifred's, she realizes that the memories in her head are not completely her own. She also has the memories of another Flora and has assumed her place at the school. She learns that her three new dorm mates performed a summoning spell that brought her to the past and that she won't return to her time until she has completed an unknown task. Saunders successfully conveys the boarding school experience of 1935, particularly the relationships Flora forms with her dorm mates. Perceptive readers may even be able to predict the ending. The narrative occasionally does more telling than showing and would have benefited from more development of Flora's pre-boarding school relationship with her grandmother, but readers willing to overlook this will be satisfied with her growth as a person and the effect she has on one of her dorm mates in particular.—Amanda Raklovits, Champaign Public Library, IL