Elsewhere Girls

July 15, 2022
Two Australian girls swap bodies and eras: Cat Feeney goes back to 1908 and Fanny Durack forward to 2021, experiences that prove liberating for both. Their lives converge when each of them, in their separate times, go swimming at Wylie's Baths in Coogee, near Sydney. Cat and Fanny narrate their confusion over the jarring body-swapping time travel in alternating first-person voices. As they pick up clues, they discover that they have swimming in common. Their responses to women's roles and the conveniences and inconveniences of life in each time period are warmly relatable. Cat hates restrictive, gender-based chores and clothing. Laundry and ironing require hours of labor, and she dislikes swimming in a heavy woolen bathing suit. Fanny is thrilled to go to school and enjoys riding in cars. She favors packaged food and is shy about her skimpy bathing suit. As Cat and Fanny rail against and adjust to their circumstances, they each clarify their passions, defining for themselves, without family or cultural pressures, their goals: Cat to get her Surf Rescue Certificate; Fanny to fight for a women's Olympic swim team. How can they trade places again so they can pursue their dreams? Cat is White, as is Fanny, a character inspired by Sarah Frances Durack, who in 1912 became the first woman swimmer to win an Olympic gold for Australia. Racial diversity in secondary characters reflects past prejudices and changing attitudes. A charming, eye-opening exploration of gender restrictions and self-determination. (afterword) (Fiction. 10-14)

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August 29, 2022
Two white 13-year-old swimmers—one in 2021 and one in 1908—swap bodies in this cheerful feminist tale by Australian authors Gale (The Other Side of Summer) and Weetman (It All Begins with Jelly Beans). After her father loses his job, Cat Feeney and her family relocate from her beloved Orange to Sydney so they can have a fresh start. On top of moving stress, she’s worried about maintaining her swimming scholarship. Meanwhile, 113 years in the past, all Fanny Durack wants to do is swim, but she is weighed down by myriad responsibilities, which include caring for her eight siblings. Their lives converge across time when the two visit the same local pool at the same day and moment in their respective years, and find themselves mysteriously inhabiting each other’s bodies after a dive. Even as they struggle to figure out how to return to their own lives, the teens marvel at each new experience. Historical factoids abound in this contemplative story, which, through Cat and Fan’s individual self-discoveries and inquisitive alternating perspectives, deftly examines the evolution of traditionally feminine gender roles. Fan is based on Sarah Frances Durack (1889–1956), the first woman to win an Olympic gold medal for swimming, as noted in an afterword. Ages 9–12.

March 16, 2021
Acclaimed authors Emily Gale and Nova Weetman have teamed up to write this beautifully rendered time-slip narrative that delves into the personal and social struggles of young women past and present. Thirteen-year-old Cat Feeney has earned a swimming scholarship at a fancy new school in Sydney, but she’s struggling to commit to the 5 am starts and endless training. In 1908, 16-year-old Fanny Durack (based on the Olympic champion of the same name) must fight for every opportunity just to train in a world where women are expected to stay at home and do housework. When a strange encounter with a silver stopwatch causes the girls to switch bodies, everything the girls have ever known about themselves, their families and swimming is turned upside down. It’s a pleasure to stumble along with moody Cat and affable Fan as, in alternating chapters, they attempt to reverse the ‘unwinding’ of time while making sense of their new surroundings and keeping the truth of their changed identities hidden. As Fan grapples with mobile phones and revealing bathing suits, Cat is tasked with enduring 12-hour washing days and emptying chamber pots. Elsewhere Girls is full of Gale and Weetman’s incisive charm and wit, and the pair’s existing middle-grade fans will happily devour this intimate, perceptive look at equality, class, women’s rights and what matters most. Jacqui Davies is a freelance writer and reviewer based in South Australia.