Roses were rarely seen at the old Jerusalem hotel. Life is hard, and for some of the tenants a luxury might be warm feet, cat's meat stew or a five-bob coat from a jumble sale. In A Power of Roses, Ruth Park draws vivid portraits of Miriam, the tough adolescent heroine; her Uncle Puss, a canny old Irishman; and a colourful assortment of inhabitants who live in the hotel's damp, rat-infested rooms.