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Teachers' Resources: Leaving it to You
From Jonathon Appleton in Rippa Reading, July 1995, Issue 50
Have the class discuss the following:
1. Leaving it to You is very much about freedom, whether it's Linda's school mate Cameron's secretly arranged party while his parents are out of town, Mrs Pugh's rights or the care and concern of Linda's older brother, who is an adult, trying to make a living and a life of his own but still willing to drive Linda about in his spare time. Each character has a different concept of freedom.
2. Leaving it to You contains two parallel stories: Linda's own, personal narrative of the visiting scheme, and it spills over into her life, and the 'official' school record which she writes without passion and detail. It rather suggests her teachers don't expect her to have gained so much, or to be capable of learning so much through the program - as well as surprising the teachers, she surprises herself. There are some things which mean more when you keep them to yourself.
3. Mrs Pugh has been saying since the start of the book that she'll leave certain things to people - but when they are taken, we wonder about the significance of the words. They sound pitiful and sad, but what Mrs Pugh leaves to Linda, ultimately is a valuable and precious thing. Mrs Pugh's rights become the concern of Linda and the hospital staff, and they are rights that cannot be parcelled like endowed gifts.
4. Throughout her books... Wendy Orr uses characters who turn out to be more or less villainous than we expect. She subverts our expectations - oh so subtly.... Unobtrusively or not, it leaves a mark on your reading and widens your perceptions.
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