The Tulip Touch by Anne Fine
The novel tells the story of Natalie Barnes and Tulip Pierce. It is set over a number of years, from when Natalie moves into the Palace Hotel as a young girl, and as she grows older and matures into her teenage years. It is in three parts reflecting the three distinct stages of the relationship between
Natalie and Tulip and shows that goodwill is essential to positive and constructive relationships.
Part 1 describes how they first meet and become good friends
Part 2 describes how things start to go wrong in the relationship
Part 3 Natalie ‘frees’ herself of Tulip
Meaning of the title:
The Tulip Touch
literally means how Tulip has ‘touched’ the lives of the other characters the tiny detail that …ver más…

92) T punished for little things at home, her dad would ‘suddenly let fly’ her mother would eventually ‘step in to try and stop him’ ‘He picks on me to start a fight with her’
N heard in street, ‘a vicious bellow’ ‘better get home before me Tulip or I’ll snatch you bald headed’
106/7) Tulip tells of the drowning of the kittens, showing how she is afraid of her father
is it Tulip’s fault she is like this? the description of her home and how she is treated show that she is neglected and abused (mentally and physically). ‘stained carpets, battered furniture’ her father drank from a ‘cracked cup’.
In her bedroom, ‘stained sheet spread across a chair to dry’ Tulip seemed different there ‘just a shell’. In the back yard there were ‘weeds waist high’ and ‘smashed bottles’.
26) Mrs B ‘what sort of squashing must she get at home to think she has to make up all this stuff to impress us’
35) T loved rooting through toys etc at the hotel (shows lack of them at home) 43) T loved