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I have read a book Nina Bawden wrote in 1989 called “The outside child. This is a story about a 13 year old girl called Jane Tucker who lives with her two ** aunts **, Bill and Sophie. They adopted her when she was a little girl because her mother died of cancer just after she was born, and her father is a marine engineer so he is away at sea most of the time.

It all begins with Jane visiting her father in one of his ships. She accidently finds some photographs of him with a woman and two children called George and Annabel. It turns out that they are her stepmother, sister and brother. Jane doesn’t remember her stepmother since she was so little when she was adopted. She feels like her life is based ** on ** a lie and the only person she can talk to is her best friend Plato Jones. Plato is one year younger then Jane and he is a typical boy who wears braces on his teeth and is small and thin for his age, but in spite of this he is quite clever. Of course Jane thinks it’s fantastic to find out that she has a brother and sister, but she also gets angry since her father never told her about them.

As expected Jane decides that she wants to find out why her stepmother never wanted to see her, and she also wants to get in touch with her siblings. With help from Plato they managed to find some information about were they live, and that her stepmother’s name is Amy. Later, Jane travels to London and ** meets her family face to face ****, ** but she presents herself as Plato’s sister. They get along well but she regrets that she wasn’t tough enough to tell them the truth about who she is. Jane also finds out that Amy recently gave birth to a son called Hugo.

While Jane visits George and Annabel her stepmother recognizes her and in anger she sends her away. Eventually Amy visits Jane and wants to explain her behaviour. Since she is disliked by Amy, Jane blames herself, but it turns out that Amy just was stub bored and unfair against her. In short this story ends quiet happy, and Jane still visits her father and sometimes her grandmother comes along. She also sees her brothers and sister occasionally, but she keep eye on Amy even though she's always sweet to her!

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