Allie and Bea by Catherine Ryan Hyde: book review

Allie and Bea (2017) is set in Southern California in 2015.

Beatrice Ann Kracinsky (Bea) is in her 70s, living in a trailer with her cat Phyllis. She’d just been scammed, leaving her with a total sum of zero dollars in her bank account. Instead of asking for help, fearing embarrassment, she got in her van and left the trailer park for the Pacific Ocean.

Alberta Keyes (Allie) is fifteen, and her parents have just been arrested for tax fraud. Allie, was sent to a group home, the New Beginnings for girls, in Los Angeles. She ran away from the group home to hitch a ride along the highway.

As Allie walks along the highway, along came a van with an old woman and a cat. The two runaways – Allie and Bea – head north along the coast.

As they hustle to get money, they learn lessons in honesty, or at least, the appropriateness of lying, and the generosity of strangers they meet. Gradually they become more trusting and less suspicious of each other as they come to enjoy their ‘adventure’ together. This includes meeting Jackson sculpting people from iron, 81-year-old Casper, and a policeman or two, as well as a zebra, an elephant seal, a bat ray, and a pelican. It’s a light, entertaining read from the popular author of the 1999 book (and movie) Pay It Forward.

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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