The book has an outstanding premise---as a child growing up in Australia during the 1960s, Brooks was eager to experience the outside world. An avid letter writer, she found pen-pals in the U.S., Israel and France. As an adult, Brooks set off to meet and re-discover these people. So far so good. But the book peters out---with the exception of the American pen-pal (to whom she was closest), the characters lack enough detail to be interesting.

Her meeting with her French pen-pal was especially disappointing. This was a girl who chose to remain in her native village (while Brooks became a world-traveler and global correspondant). I hoped for more insights and more discussion of the contrast and why they chose such radically different paths---despite coming from somewhat similar backgrounds (Brooks saw herself as living in a giant provincial village---the village of Australia). But there was little discussion and the meeting simply sounded painful. Her trip to Israel to meet her non-Jewish Israeli pen-pal would also have benefitted from a deeper discussion about one's choices and opportunities (there was some discussion of this but I wanted to know more).

Had I not read Brooks' other books, I probably would have thought this was a fairly good book. But I know she can write such a better book!

While I read this one on my own, I have since leant this book to several friends and we've engaged in some interesting discussions about our own penpal experiences, so I recommend it for book clubs.

As a child growing up in a lower middle class neighborhood on a street actually called "Bland Street", she yearned for a larger world. And so she developed pen pals. There was a girl from New Jersey, another one from France, and even one from an upper class neighborhood just a few towns away. And then there were two Israeli boys, one an Arab and one a Jew. As an adult, she found these old letters in her father's basement and, now more than twenty years later, she decided to look up each of these people. What follows is the result of her quest and some wonderful insights into world events from a personal one-on-one perspective. It was fascinating.

As a teenager in the early seventies she was aware of the new consciousness developing, even reaching her in her protective Catholic school. She had an active imagination and the gift of using words well. It's not surprising that she developed pen pals and that they influenced her life so much. Her gift of words certainly reached me too. I shared her sense of wonder and enthusiasm as she looked forward to each letter. I felt her straining to break the bonds of her loving but restrictive world. I felt her hopes and dreams and frustrations. And then, later, I shared her discoveries as she searched out the people who had meant so much to her early life. She writes with a clear voice, painting a picture with details, taking me on her quest to discover the world and eventually to discover herself. The book is short, a mere 210 pages but she sure does pack a lot into it. It's a wonderful read. Highly recommended.