Margaret Forster

Girls will be girls

issue 12 October 2002

You’ll have noticed them on the roads, minibuses, full of schoolgirls, being driven by harassed teachers to some country location where the girls will be put through end-of-term, healthy outdoor activities, protesting all the way. Among any group of eight 13-year-olds there’ll be a victim, a loner, a leader, and so on – it’s been the stuff of many a novel since Lord of the Flies, but it is Bella Bathurst’s considerable achievement to bring to this scenario something contemporary and fresh.

Right from the beginning,...

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