Hetty Feather
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| Author | Jacqueline Wilson |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Nick Sharratt |
| Cover artist | Nick Sharratt |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Pages | 309 pp (first edition, hardback) |
| ISBN | (first edition, hardback) |
Hetty Feather is a book by best-selling author Jacqueline Wilson. It is about a young girl who is abandoned by her mother at the Foundling Hospital as a baby and follows her story as she lives in a foster home before returning to the Foundling Hospital as a curious 5-year-old. There are more books to the "series" of Hetty Feather, these are recommended for ages 11–15, according to the author.CBBC created a TV series based on the book, with Isabel Clifton portraying Hetty. The programme was first aired in 2015. The book is followed by Sapphire Battersea.
Hetty was abandoned at the Foundling Hospital as a newborn baby. Children abandoned at the Hospital are in Foster care or fostered until the age of five, at the nearest date when they turn five they will be returned to the hospital to start their education. Hetty spends her earlier life as a foster child under the care of Peg and John Cotton who she knows as her mother and her father. She is very unaware that she will one day have to leave the cottons. There are other foster children in her home as well as Peg and John's own children. Jem, Eliza, Nat and Rosie Peg and Johns own children; however Martha, Saul, Gideon and eventually Little Eliza are from the hospital. There is also Bess and Nora, who are away in service, and Marcus, who is a soldier. Hetty is especially keen on Jem, who is five years older than Hetty is , and is very kind to her. Hetty is a feisty, redheaded child with a very short fuse and also often gets into trouble but she is generally kind and loved by the family. Especially Jem.
Martha is the oldest of the five fostered children, and is taken away back to the Foundling Hospital on her fifth birthday. Obviously, Hetty does not connect poor Martha's fate with her own future, until Saul is taken too; although she doesn't really like Saul, she weeps when Peg takes the howling Saul away. When Peg tells the rest of the foundlings about the Hospital, Jem swears to Hetty that he will marry her once she is released from the horrible hospital around the age of fourteen.
As she gets older she sees an elephant from a circus that has moved into the small town. There is a parade through the streets, and she adores it; especially Madame Adeline, a redheaded lady dressed in glittering clothing who rides a very proud horse. Hetty and Jem slip of to the circus, telling Gideon they are going into the woods to a tree Gideon is scared of, as he cannot be trusted with all the secrets. They cautiously make there way in through the side of the circus tent and watch and enjoy the show together. Towards the end, Madame Adeline performs and asks for a volunteer to come up and assist her, and Hetty screams and exclaims to be picked. She is, and performs on Madame Adeline's horse with her. The crowd cheer and clap as Hetty returns to her seat, exelirated got to meet Madame Adeline and that Madame Adeline had named her 'My Little Star'. When leaving the circus, Hetty is convinced that Madame Adeline is her mother, and wants to go back and meet her again, but Jem insists not to bother her. When they get home, they find that Gideon has gone missing; after hours of searching, Gideon is found by the tree that Hetty had claimed they were going to, unconscious. He recovers but is greatly weakened and no longer speaks. Hetty feels horrendously guilty.
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