I wish I'd known these books existed when I was a kid - I would have loved them! That love would be entirely due to Blossom, who is an absolute terror of a child and is therefore deeply entertaining. Her psychic powers are used mainly, it has to be said, to troll other children (and they thoroughly deserve it); she's a very funny little girl, possessed of an absolute and brutal honesty... at least when it suits her. She's fantastic.

I was a little hesitant to read this one, even given how much I enjoyed the previous two volumes, as the blurb indicated that Blossom would time travel into the future, and with the best will in the world that's not one of my favourite tropes. Blossom in the 1980s is still fun, but it's admittedly the least interesting part of the book. Luckily, it only takes up maybe a quarter or so of the story, so much less of a focus than the blurb indicates, and the rest is her life back in 1914. That's the time that best suits her, I think, as she's so very self-possessed there that she comes off to best effect. Not that she isn't self-possessed in the future, but it's a little muted because her surroundings are so unfamiliar and she's not always sure how to react to it.

I must say, though, the Dreadful Future of the title? It's not really Blossom's. For some of the kids there, she is the Dreadful thing, and again... they deserve it.