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Girlfriend Fiction #13
Little Bird
Everything I know about love I learned in one short year. Somehow I'd coasted along all my life and then I fell in love twice, bam bam, just like that, and it left my heart spinning...
Ruby-lee is cynical about love; after all, she's watched her sister Shandra call off her wedding three times a week. But when Shandra volunteers her to babysit her friend's seven month old baby, Ruby-lee discovers just what love means. First she's overcome by powerful feelings for tiny Maisy, then she starts spending time with Maisy's dad, Spence. She even begins to imagine a future together, as a family. But where will Ruby-lee's fantasies lead? And what sort of trouble could they get her into? When it looks like Ruby-lee might lose everything, she has to discover what love truly is to find her own heart.
Ruby-lee is cynical about love; after all, she's watched her sister Shandra call off her wedding three times a week. But when Shandra volunteers her to babysit her friend's seven month old baby, Ruby-lee discovers just what love means. First she's overcome by powerful feelings for tiny Maisy, then she starts spending time with Maisy's dad, Spence. She even begins to imagine a future together, as a family. But where will Ruby-lee's fantasies lead? And what sort of trouble could they get her into? When it looks like Ruby-lee might lose everything, she has to discover what love truly is to find her own heart.
180 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2009
1 person is currently reading
91 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 8, 2025
3.5 Stars
February 21, 2010
Little Bird is part of the Girlfriend Fiction series of novels Allen & Unwin are publishing, books written by all different Australian authors. And all the books I've read so far in the series are quite wonderful (like Penni Russon's other title The Indigo Girls, Kate Constable's Always Mackenzie and Scot Gardner's Bookmark Days); Little Bird especially is such a lovely, lovely story.
It's about Ruby-lee, who is roped into babysitting Maisy, who is the daughter of her older sister's best friend. Ruby-lee becomes infatuated with Spence - who is both Maisy's father and a music teacher at her school - and though that sounds a million levels of wrong, it's so delicately written and you feel so much for Ruby-lee that it doesn't really matter about the ick factor of such a crush.
My mini-review is beginning to look like it's going to end up full-size-review length, so I'll just give you my overall thoughts: this is a really wonderful, beautifully-written novel, that ended way too quick (Girlfriend fiction novels are designed to be brief, I think with the intention of encouraging reluctant readers, but I wanted to read so much more!). I found the parts with Maisy so touching, and Ruby-lee was just gorgeous. And Penni Russon writes so lyrically and it was so Australian without being overly so and it just made me feel really nice, like a warm cup of tea on a day when it is raining and all is right in the world.
You should get it. Little Bird, I mean, not the rainy afternoon and cup of tea. Though they are nice in combination.
It's about Ruby-lee, who is roped into babysitting Maisy, who is the daughter of her older sister's best friend. Ruby-lee becomes infatuated with Spence - who is both Maisy's father and a music teacher at her school - and though that sounds a million levels of wrong, it's so delicately written and you feel so much for Ruby-lee that it doesn't really matter about the ick factor of such a crush.
My mini-review is beginning to look like it's going to end up full-size-review length, so I'll just give you my overall thoughts: this is a really wonderful, beautifully-written novel, that ended way too quick (Girlfriend fiction novels are designed to be brief, I think with the intention of encouraging reluctant readers, but I wanted to read so much more!). I found the parts with Maisy so touching, and Ruby-lee was just gorgeous. And Penni Russon writes so lyrically and it was so Australian without being overly so and it just made me feel really nice, like a warm cup of tea on a day when it is raining and all is right in the world.
You should get it. Little Bird, I mean, not the rainy afternoon and cup of tea. Though they are nice in combination.
March 3, 2011
One of the first few books I read in the GF series, and I LOVED it! I love stories including little children, so this book was really enjoyable, it's a mus read!
July 7, 2013
I loved it. It relates to my life but I don't like a teacher
October 24, 2015
This book was alright. I didn't really like it though...
May 23, 2019
Just great. The perfect sense of Hobart, of being a teenaged girl, of figuring out womanhood, motherhood, and adulthood.
April 12, 2013
isbn 9781741758641
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews