Rose on wheels by Sherryl Clark

Ill. by Lucia Masciullo. Our Australian Girl (series). Penguin, 2011. ISBN 978 0 14 330537 1
(Ages: 9+) Australian history. Rose is still in a quandary. Her mother insists that she be tutored at home. While Rose would love to go to school to learn about the wider world, her mother is certain that the art of needlework, good manners and deportment are all that a young girl needs, but daily, Rose has the example of her Aunt Alice, a modern young woman, voicing her rights as a woman in the year of the Federation of Australia, wanting change and the right to vote. Now at school, she is learning just how far behind she is compared to the other girls in her class, and if it wasn't for her new friend, Abigail and her aunt, she would have fallen even further behind. The subjects are all new and exciting, the freedom exquisite, and she also wants to play cricket.
The second in the quartet of stories making up those about Rose, in the series, Our Australian Girl, sees Rose, a young girl at the time of Federation in 1901, striving to be heard. It is the old against the new, as she learns lots about the nation when going with her aunt to her place of work, a poor school nearby as well as the Votes for Women campaign meetings in the city.
The young girl is well drawn and will garner fans as they read of her challenges in this time of change.
Fran Knight