Title
of book: Betty’s Magic Shoes
Author:
Iwuoha Juliet
Reviewer: Adjekpagbon Blessed Mudiaga
Iwuoha Juliet’s
debut novella, Betty’ Magic Shoes
dwells on the petty jealousies that exist among little girls as they grow up
into adulthood, showcasing both negative and positive traits common among
women.
The central
character is known as Betty Patrick, who lives with her single mother, Mrs.
Patrick. She is a 12-year-old primary six pupil of Bright Future Primary
School, Owerri, the setting of the story. Betty is bow-legged and this is used
to mock her by some of her classmates and the recalcitrant Edith, a bully and
jealous daughter of the school headmistress, Mrs. Dorcas.
According to the
author, “Edith hated Betty so much because Betty had exposed her twice while
she was copying and asking others for answers during exams. For that reason,
she promised to make life miserable for her in the school.”
Edith lives to her
word as she makes Betty’s school life sorrowful. Betty finds herself in the
webs of sadness as Edith gangs up with other timid girls in her class to bully
and tell lies against her. She is punished for offences she did not commit.
Backed by her
mother, Mrs. Dorcas who is equally mean like her jealous daughter, Edith, the
pains of Betty increases daily like waterfall rushing into a bucket. Betty is
frustrated and decides to go home alone through a lonely bush path one
particular day. She incidentally meets an injured and tired old man along the bush
path. She helps to treat the man’s injuries, and receives a pair of shoes that has
magical power as reward from the man.
Betty uses the shoes
to wish for whatever she wants except money which the shoes cannot provide.
With the aid of the magical shoes, she wins athletic races competitions both at
her school and Royal Primary School’s inter-house sports’ events. This makes
her very popular as she is honoured with awards and scholarship to study
abroad. Her mother shed tears of joy as Betty leaves for America. All the
previous sorrows they had gone through are forgotten.
Meanwhile, Edith and
her biased mother, Mrs. Dorcas who is the headmistress of Bright Future Primary
School, reaps their karmic debts when Mrs. Obata, the school proprietress
discovers the atrocities of both mother and daughter against Betty. While the
daughter is asked to wash the school toilet all through the remaining days
before the school vacation for holidays, the mother is demoted from
headmistress position to an ordinary teacher level.
Miss Glory, who has
been Betty’s very encouraging and caring class teacher, becomes the new headmistress
after Mrs. Dorcas’s demotion. Edith and her mother are ashamed and stop coming
to school thereafter.
The moral from the
story is that, there are some bad mothers who support their ill-bred daughters
to bully other kids at school or at home. Hence, such wayward daughters grow up
to become nuisance to their classmates and other people in the society. But on
the long run, there is always a day of reckoning for every good or bad thing
anyone engages in as time ticks.
The spirit of
perseverance to succeed by being law abiding, peaceful, hard working, kind and
truthful in the face of different types of persecution, are the hallmarks of Betty’s
success, which the author seems to beam on.
The story is quite
interesting as it is full of tears-generating situations from the eyes of an emotional
reader, and also engenders joy as evil people are punished, while the oppressed
receives justice and reward at last. Though, no mechanical noise is noticed in
the book, there are some typos and syntactic noise that requires correction
before reprint.
Iwuoha Juliet is a
screen writer and actress.
