Dear Iguanodon

About this book

September 1936, Penge. Eleven-year-old Mabel Rook never volunteers, never breaks a rule, and wants nothing ever to change. But her father's job in the television laboratories inside the Crystal Palace is wobbling, her mother talks of moving north, and silent Great-Gran may be sent to the Institution. Dared by her little brother, Mabel posts a letter into a crack under the arm of the stone Iguanodon on the lake island. A week later a reply is waiting in brown ink. It is from Hester Gell, eleven, who carries dinner pails to the men building that same Iguanodon in 1853. Loud, fearless and a terrible speller, Hester is about to sail for the goldfields. Then Mabel looks up the name of Hester's ship. How do you warn a friend who lived eighty-three years ago, and what if she will not listen?