What's this book from my childhood? Alison goes to live with Dad and step-mum.....

[RainSunWind]

It is reaalllly frustrating me. I remember almost all the story and lots of detail but not the title or the author!!!

It was a book about a girl called Alison and her little brother Chris. Their parents are divorced and they live with her mother, in a flat I think. Her mum has a nervous breakdown and they are sent to live with their dad, who has remarried to a pretty young woman (Briony?) who has a daughter (Rosa?) of around Alison's age.

Alison's little brother adapts well to the new household but Alison senses the class distinction between her, her little brother, her mum and then her dad and his new family. She feels that if she adapts to the new house, who eat muesli and have a generally pleasant upmarket lifestyle that she is betraying her mum and her roots. She is also jealous of her step-mum and step-sister and does a few mean acts which she later feels sorry for.

In the end she starts to see the benefits/advantages of their new living arrangements, and settles in better to the house and her new school. She also develops a better relationship with her step-mum.

I would love to read the book again. Can anyone help with the book title/author? Thanks v much!

[RainSunWind]

Bump

[MrsCliveStanden]

The bewitching of Alison Albright?

[RainSunWind]

Hi, thanks for replying MrsCLiveStanden. I looked that one up and that's not the one but Thank You for suggesting! (looks like a good read actually!)

It was an Anne Fine type book, similar to Goggle-Eyes (if anyone knows that). and for the same age group (I guess 11-14?) I have looked at all the Anne Fine titles/books and it isn't one of them sadly.

[timtam23]

Could it be "The Other Side" by Jacqueline Wilson?

[FOURBOYSUNDER6]

Bonjour tristesse ????

[NowhereNow]

There's a book I've been trying to find for years and I'm wondering if it might be the same one. My memories aren't as detailed as yours - I didn't remember a brother, but the story was about a girl who goes to live with her father and her step-mum - they are wealthy and she isn't used to it.

I think she is sent to a posh school (possibly boarding school?) and she hates it - she's bullied as she doesn't fit in with the other girls. The only thing she likes about her new life is her dog. I think she might walk him on Hampstead Heath.

I remember she plays a trick on one of the bullies - she puts a bag of chopped liver (her dog's food) in the bully's lunchbox. That's about all I can remember, except I thought the girl or the author might be called Lizzie. Does any of that sound familiar? I'm now mid-30s so probably read it in the late 1980s.