Her ability to create interesting, lovable characters who navigate 9 to 12-year-olds through key moments in history is unmatched The Times

During that time she's not allowed to see her best friend because her best friend's mother won't allow her to because of what happened with Opal's father. At the factory, the owner's son and Opal fall deeply in love. However, once the first World War War against Germany begins, Morgan, the factory owner's son dies in the army and Opal, who is the factory owner's favourite is offered the chance to go to art school as she is very talented as well as being offered her own house by Mrs Roberts! Whilst all this is happening, Cassie has found her true love Daniel and they start a family by having two children together. Fourteen-year-old Opal Plumstead is a scholarship girl at a posh school. She hopes to go to university, though her real love is painting. She copes with not fitting in at school (she’s plump and shabbily dressed) because her best friend, Olivia, is on her side. Then tragedy strikes. Her father, an overworked clerk with literary aspirations, is caught forging a cheque and ends up in prison; Olivia is forbidden to see her; and Opal must leave school and go to work at Mrs Roberts’ sweet factory, ‘Fairy Glen’, where she’s bullied. Her life becomes utterly miserable. This wonderful new wartime story will be published to coincide with the one hundred year anniversary of the start of the First World War. And like one of Roald Dahl's most timeless and beloved novels, much of the action takes place at a sweet factory! There's no other way of interpreting it. The author cannot seriously expect us to like or feel sorry for this banshee/Dementor after that, surely? For children's and YA lit, it's horrific and unreadable. Triggering, even.I have now read this 2 times, when I want to read something I know I love, I head for Opal Plumstead on the book shelf. And where are you off to, missy? Mixing with those dreadful suffragettes again? You're going to get yourself into terrible trouble. All decent folk think those women want horse-whipping. The destruction they've caused! [...] [After Opal explains how they've been tortured and even killed] They bring it on themselves with their silly hysterics." Ocr tesseract 4.1.1 Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Latin Ocr_detected_script_conf 1.0000 Ocr_module_version 0.0.10 Ocr_parameters -l eng Old_pallet IA-NS-2000172 Openlibrary_edition However, Jacqueline Wilson is excellent at capturing the feel of pre-1914 Britain; the class distinctions, the limitations on women’s choices, Mrs Roberts’ wonderfully Pre-Raphaelite house; the pressure on young men to sign up and go to war, and so on. I particularly enjoyed Opal’s beautiful sister Cassie, who, unbeknownst to her mother, has a ‘gentleman friend’, an artist, and poses for him – and that’s not all she does. Times are changing and the war will turn the world upside-down. The above line sums up practically everything wrong with this so-called feminist book about the suffragettes. Let's see: In the space of a breath, the male love interest makes generalizations about girls and what they want (when he'd just admitted to not knowing many), compares them to indistinguishable blank dolls with no substance, slut shames them, refers to them as brainless, superficial bimbos without having to say those exact words, and to top it off, he goes all "You're not like other girls" on our leading female.

Before I begin, I'll say that before 'Opal', I gave Ms Wilson the benefit of the doubt and assumed that her bias against fat women is unconscious. In practically all of her books, the fat women and girls featured have either been stupid, greedy, disgusting, the butt of mean jokes, shy and pathetic even for her usual protagonists, typical mean bullies, irredeemable antagonists, or most of the above. Not a good look for a Children's Laureate, as if the girls reading her books won't be self-conscious and depressed enough.You're the most intolerably selfish girl. What sort of a daughter are you? If only Cassie could stay home on Saturday." The accuracy and detailing of the time era truly allowed me to envision myself in London 1913-1915. Her descriptions of the sweets and confectionary had me drooling. Opal is stalked by an arsehole, Freddy, who also works at Fairy Glen. She forgives and excuses him for everything, of course, and the narrative doesn't challenge this. 'Opal' barely avoids a love triangle by letting that ship sail before Opal meets her main love-at-first-sight love interest, Mrs Robert's son, Morgan. Yes, the story is as trite and predictable as it sounds. Opal’s mother and beautiful sister Cassie, strongly disagree with this. Opal’s mother (Lou) tells Cassie; Will Ernest’s story be accepted or not? If he does, will their life be better? Or if it does not, will everything change for ever?