The friendship of second form schoolgirl Anna Greenwood with High School student Charlotte de Havilland, and the effect that this has on both, forms the crux of this powerful middle-grade novel from New Zealand children's author Clare Mallory. Desperately unhappy, after the arrival of spiteful, jealous new girl Gwensie Morrison, who successfully isolates her from the rest of her form, Anna is friendless at the beginning of the book. Her home life is similarly bleak, with a gentle but alcoholic father who must sometimes be fetched home from the racetrack, and a kind but mostly absent mother, working hard in the family shop to support them, and too busy to pay much attention to Anna and her troubles. Into this situation comes Charlotte, a girl who seems to lead a charmed life - beautiful, graceful, popular, well-clothed, a good athlete, a school prefect, and the possessor of a lovely home and a happy family - and the two become unlikely friends. Charlotte helps Anna with many things, from her poorly chosen and poorly kept clothing to her dismal social situation. She even effects a change in Anna's home, both inside and out. Slowly however, as Anna grows in confidence, it becomes apparent that the friendship is changing Charlotte as well...

Anna~Charlotte was written some time between 1949 and 1950, at the same time as Mallory's Candy Nevill, and, together with that story, remained unpublished in the author's lifetime, deposited as a typewritten manuscript at the Alexander Turnbull Library in New Zealand. Both were published posthumously by the small British press, Margin Notes Books - Candy Nevill in 2012 and Anna~Charlotte in 2016. This is the eleventh of Mallory's twelve published books that I have read - The Two Linties will be the final one - and like Candy Nevill, it ranks amongst my favorites, of her many wonderful books. I wondered, in my review of Candy Nevill, that no publisher decided to publish it at the time it was written, but with Anna~Charlotte I am not so surprised. I do not think I have ever read a book from this era (or before) that managed to combine so many of the charming elements of vintage girls' books - the school story elements, the friendships, the satisfying self-improvement narratives - with such a realistic, sympathetic and non-sensational depiction of bullying, family dysfunction, and alcoholism. This story addresses real problems, but it does not feel like a "problem novel," as they would come to be called, a number of decades later. Anna's misery is acute, and Mallory skillfully captures her sense of despair, and the deep depression into which she has fallen. She also captures Anna's simultaneous feelings of love and shame, when it comes to her father, and there were moments in the story where I found myself close to tears. According to the brief introduction from Jane Palmer and Lisa Migo, Mallory herself had to contend with a father who was an alcoholic, and no doubt that personal experience leant her story a great feeling of authenticity and pathos. Tellingly, although this is a hopeful book, and covers the year-long process whereby Anna's life improves, the issue of her father is left unresolved, and one gets the feeling that this was something that just had to be accepted, because it couldn't be changed, an attitude I think probably would not have made it into a contemporary story of this kind.

In any case, Anna~Charlotte was just a marvelous book - well-written, entertaining, engrossing, and emotionally involving. I am so very glad to have managed to track a copy down, and highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys realistic middle-grade, whether vintage or contemporary. Sadly, given the fact that it really deserves a wider readership, it can be difficult to obtain, but if one does happen upon a copy, I highly recommend that they read it. ( )