I finally received my Beany Malone books late last week (and yep, I spent the weekend reading 13 and a half of the 14 books). Having been reading the WSVS papers with great interest and enjoyment (congratulations everyone on your hard work BTW), I noticed that there are a number of unwell characters presented and was mentally linking the discussion themes with the Beany Malone Books.
The mother of the Malone children is dead before the series opens and their father is often absent. Check box for children bringing themselves up and able to do stuff without appropriate supervision. One of Beany's good friends, Rosellen, had polio as a child. When she is introduced she is in a wheelchair, throughout the series she graduates to crutches. Rosellen is a graduate of the school of pain. She is portrayed as wise and helpful to her friends, as well as being a happy, good natured girl who is an inspiration (in sort of a "what would Rosellen do?" way) and always the life of any party. An undercurrent throughout the books in which Rosellen appears is her struggle with coming to terms with her weakness. She recognises that she will never get better, but hides this from her family who are very hopeful that soon she will be walking with only a cane. Several scenes show friends carrying Rosellen upstairs where she can't otherwise go in her wheelchair, she is also shown coming downstairs on her bum as she is nervous about putting weight on her bung leg once she graduates to crutches. Another of Beany's friends, Kay, has a different kind of health problem once she grows up and gets married. In a more old fashioned GOish sort of illness, she becomes very anemic when she is working too hard while pregnant. She never really recovers. This is obviously her punishment for eloping <G> S P O I L E R S P A C E What I found really interesting was that when Rosellen finally does die, her brother Andy is angry. Not stoic and accepting as seems to be the accepted way in British GO books, but go crazy off the rails mad at God angry and resentful. Kay ends up dieing of leukemia. The author obviously never did forgive her for her unladylike behaviour. Cheers Di -- ________________________________________ Girlsown mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] For self-administration and access to archives see http://home.it.net.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/girlsown For FAQs see http://www.club-web.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/girlsown/faq-0.htm
