I came across this time-travelling Australian fantasy in the library recently, and just had to pick it up. It's been decades since I last read it, but it was one of those books I absolutely loved as a kid - I was almost worried about reading it again, wondering if the magic would be lost, but it wasn't. It was as entertaining as ever, and I was thoroughly amused by all those rotten kids. Which sounds terrible, but it's true: nearly all the kids in this book are monsters of selfishness. Selfish brats of children can be fantastic characters - my favourite book of all time, The Secret Garden, has as its heroine an enormously unpleasant little girl, and I am deeply attached to her. Both Beatie Bow and Abigail are not all that much better, and little Gilbert is the most obnoxious pest - when Abby finally loses her shit and clouts him about the ears you know it is entirely well-deserved. It's not that I find unpleasant children particularly likeable, you understand. They're not very. But they do feel realistic, and the kids in Playing Beatie Bow always feel absolutely real to me. I'm going to have to find a copy of this book for myself - I don't want to stumble randomly across it in another twenty years and realise I've forgotten all about it again. It's too entertaining for that...