Wonderland
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Wonderland by Barbara O’Connor is about the developing friendship of two ten-year-old girls named Rose and Mavis. Rose is the young daughter of a wealthy family living in Magnolia Estates in Landry, Alabama. Mavis and her mother are moving to Alabama at the opening of the story as Mavis’s mom has been hired by Rose’s family to serve their family - cleaning and cooking. Mavis and her mom live in a garage apartment which is the perfect proximity for Mavis and Rose to grow their friendship as they enjoy the adventures of summer.
One of their many adventures centers around helping Mr. Duffy. Mr. Duffy is the elderly guard at the entrance to Magnolia Estates. It is his job to man who is entering the community. However, due to his age and the recent death of his beloved dog, Mr. Duffy is not doing well at his job and many members of the community are unhappy. In an attempt to make Mr. Duffy happy again, Mavis has a plan to get Mr. Duffy another dog. Rose is unsure of this plan, but she pushes herself out of her comfort zone and joins Mavis on the quest.
Through various plot events, the girls come across a dog named Henry who is an ex-racer from the local greyhound track. In the end, the girls convince Mr. Duffy to just foster Henry but in the end their plan wins out as Mr. Duffy is glad to call Henry his own. Through all their efforts to help Mr. Duffy, Rose and Mavis must navigate the ups and downs of friendship and life.
Wonderland is a cute story as the girls develop their friendship through their many disagreements and pushing one another in different ways. However, it is Rose who has the most character growth as she goes from a timid worrier to feeling more confident and brave as she begins to speak up for herself, particularly when it comes to her mother.
Speaking of mothers - this story presents a pretty bad depiction of some mothers and they don’t really have an arc of development. There are some slight shifts at the end but nothing fully. Rose’s mom is very particular about everything in her home and life. She is all about what is proper and correct. She doesn’t care for things dirty, out of place, or that could be a point of embarrassment - whether that be the cleanliness of her home or the appearance of Mr. Duffy in the neighborhood. She is extremely critical and judgmental. Mavis’s mother is essentially the same, but the class division between rich and poor is what separates them. Mavis’s mother is a complaining, listless woman, without direction who drags her daughter from state to state as she seeks purpose and perfection. Unfortunately, this has exposed Mavis to boyfriends of various types that are briefly mentioned. There are mentions of Mavis’s father in Tennessee, but he doesn’t seem to be any more stable than her mother. In the end, Mavi’s mother leaves employment with Rose’s family and begins working as a receptionist at an insurance agency. She seems to have stopped complaining, and the novel ends with a hopeful tone for the future.
Other notes of mention:
On page 24-25 there is an early mention of one of Mavis’s mothers boyfriends and an incident in which her mother left his “car on the side of the road” that caused a huge fight before they left. There is also a mention of a “hotheaded boyfriend” on page 253.
Mr. Duffy is elderly man. On page 66 he makes a joke about “maybe [he] can be the keeper of the pearly gates” but then goes on to say, "Assuming I’m going to heaven, but that might be questionable.” This is the only mention of anything spiritual.
On page 93, Mavis’s mother makes a comment about Monroe Tucker, the gardener, being good looking.
On page 111, Rose is questioning herself about why she can’t be more like Mavis. “Why was she such a worrywart? Why couldn’t she be more like Mavis? Mavis didn’t care one little bit if her mama yelled at her.”
“Mavis was used to her mother complaining. She complained about Mavis’s dad, who never sent money when he was supposed to and was a mama’s boy. She complained about jealous boyfriends, nosy schoolteachers, the high cost of cigarettes, and her flabby arms. And she complained about every job she had ever had” (114).
Mavis has a knack for lying and Rose somewhat admires her ability to lie so easily. In following Mavis, Rose is often at odds with what her mother would approve of. The girls do travel to a greyhound race track that requires them to bike out of the community without anyone knowing what they are doing.
“Why was she so bad at lying? She’d give anything to be as good a liar as Mavis was” (145).
When Mr. Duffy hears of their trip to the greyhound race track, he scolds Rose. Mavis responds, “But she didn’t get in trouble ‘cause her mama doesn’t know” (198).
On page 158-159, there are mentions of gambling at the greyhound race track.
When Mavis asks her mother about attending a mother-daughter book club, her mother responds that those events essentially are not for people like them. Mavis yells at her mother, “Why do you have to be so mad about everything every minute of the day?” she hollered. “Every time we move somewhere new you say you’re going to like it better, but you never do. You just have something new to gripe about” (204).
In an attempt to get Mr. Duffy to adopt Henry, Mavis has plans to guilt trip him. Rose doesn’t think it is a kind thing to do, but Mavis proceeds by saying how good she is at guilt tripping (225).
Overall, I enjoyed the story. Particularly because it was told with a focus on Mavis, Rose, and Henry. It is a cute way to structure the story and the chapters are relatively short, so for younger readers it is the perfect length to keep them moving forward at a quick pace and with the change in point of view, they are not going to get bored. While Mavis is a bold character that helps Rose to grow, I didn’t particularly care for the focus on her deception and encouraging Rose to just break her mother’s rules. Rose at times calls her sister, Grace, for advice and Grace encourages her to have “fun” with Mavis and her plans. Rose’s father is present in the novel at scenes in which the family is sharing meals at the table, but he never directly interferes to help Rose with her mother or really engages at all. I would certainly like to see more from him; however, as a story to focus on the adventures of two young girls who feel lonely and left out in other social groups to develop their own friendship together, I recognized the limited space to develop some of the nuance that would have been needed in the story.
Nevertheless, it is a clean story with a strong focus on friendship and navigating how to give and take in a relationship and to work through disagreements and feelings. I would just like to also make parents aware of the portrayal of the mothers and the deception used in their escapades.
