Tanya spent five years living in boarding school. She left a loving home life with her parents, siblings, the wide open plains and her beloved horse Nero, to encounter the stark contrast of a boarding school dormitory. Not only did she no longer have her own happy space, she found herself in strange surroundings and then met the formidable, and one or two kinder, boarding mistresses...

She met the other first year girls. Initially Treena, with whom she became firm friends. Treena helped guide her and explain some strange words she hadn't heard before. What on earth does 'gated' mean, she thought?

Living in a strict boarding school in Adelaide was a far cry from what she was used to. It was a world of stone and concrete, high walls,

uniforms, harsh words and endless rules that made no sense. At night, she heard the noise of the traffic, she didn't have the stars or the Milky Way to comfort her. In Winter, she was always cold and hungry. Then there were her three tormentors. As the shortest girl in the school, she was at a disadvantage and easy pickings for school bullies.

But, there were many good times and after adapting to boarding school life and traumatically painful orthodontic work, the girls embraced a different life. They became her new family. They formed firm friendships and helped each other in this, as she describes, prison-like life.

As mentioned earlier, life at MLC wasn't all bad. They enjoyed school socials and discos with the boys from the brother school, sports days, singing and other events. It is easy to get totally engrossed in Beyond Alice, especially the stories of life in the outback during school holidays and accounts of life in her early years.

As a child, Tanya is bookish and enjoys writing stories about her adventures and reading them to her boarding school friends, who listen eagerly. They include describing rounding up cattle with her father in his light plane and Tanya, and her siblings, with the stockman on their horses.

She tells us of her sense of belonging to the family station and the things she looks forward to on holidays from boarding school, such as the gymkhanas, the campdrafts, the show days and on hot Summer nights, sleeping out in the bush under the wide open skies.

And then, at last, it's the end of school life and the sudden realisation the girls will be without each other. What will happen, how will Tanya cope without her boarding school family? Find out in Beyond Alice, a good real-life, humorous and uplifting story about a small girl from the Territory, who flourishes. This is Tanya Heaslip's third book.

Editors note: As I read Beyond Alice, I felt rather guilty, for having helped schools promote their boarding schools in features I'd published years ago!

This is independent review, I am not paid by the publishers, so.If you Liked this review, Buy me a coffee

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