Wolf Hollow

Wolf Hollow

Juvenile fiction
"The year I turned twelve, I learned how to lie.
I don't mean the small fibs that children tell. I mean real
lies fed by real fears--things I said and did that took me out of the
life I'd always known and put me down hard into a new one.
It was the autumn of 1943 when my steady life began to spin, not
only because of the war that had drawn the whole world into a
screaming brawl, but also because of the dark-hearted girl who came to
our hills and changed everything."
In the beginning of her Wolf Hollow (quoted above), Lauren Wolk
not only sets the stage for her novel vividly and richly (in only four
sentences), but has the experienced reader detecting tinges of Harper
Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird. The protagonist is a girl coming of age
in a small rural town during a less sophisticated time. An antagonist
brings a world of trouble into the life of someone who is feared for
being different. You know the heroine, eyewitness to all the drama,
and her world will never be the same again.
Betty Glengarry has been sent to live with her grandparents,
presumably for being incorrigible. Narrator Annabelle doesn't know if
this placement is supposed to be a cure or a punishment for Betty.
But it's a tribulation for her. Betty knows how to bully in many ways
and how to keep her victims silent.
Betty also knows how to make herself look like the victim rather
than the perpetrator.
Toby had come back inwardly damaged from the first World War.
People in the community have seen him as strange but not really feared
him. Now all that's changing. Betty has them suspecting he threw the
stone that blinded Annabelle's friend, Ruth, in one eye.
And when Betty disappears unexpectedly he's the prime suspect.
Wolf Hollow would be a great book for a mother/daughter book
club read. Although perfect for its target demographic, it has a lot
to offer the rest of us in today's America where a latter day Betty is
running the show and his targets are legion. Annabelle tells us,
"The year I turned twelve, I learned that what I said and what I
did mattered.
So much, sometimes, that I wasn't sure I wanted such a burden.
But I took it anyway, and I carried it as best I could."
Now those are words to live by!
On a personal note, the storm that was predicted for Thursday lived up
to its hype. There were times I felt like I was inside a snow globe
being shaken by a giant. When I woke up on Friday I was trapped
inside by snow that looked like it was waist high. When Eugene came
home after working 30 hours he had all that to shovel.
Do you ever wish time would speed up and slow down at the same time?
That's how I feel. The grad school people are studying applications,
comparing candidates, deciding who will start the masters program in
September. It's like the point near the end of a Jodi Picoult novel
where lawyers on both sides have done all they can and the verdict is
now in the hands of the jury which is sequestered out of sight. It's
also like the board game Chutes And Ladders. I'm about to either
advance or fall just about to square one. Because if I don't make it
this year I'm going to find out how to improve my prospects for next
year. Giving up is not an option.
A great big shout out goes out Eugene who is out at the moment in
windchill way below zero weather taking care of our homestead
including shoveling snow off the roof.
FYI we are far from out of the woods when it comes to blizzards and
power outages. My daughter Amber's crafts blog has a real sanity
saver of a post this week--how to create a DIY power outage activity
kit. You need not be bored and/or anxious the next time darkness
falls unexpectedly. Http://amberscraftaweek.blogspot.com
If you have still to home children anywhere from toddler to teen
creating such a kit can be even more of a sanity saver. My kit
consists of unread scary stories (Stephen King is my go to guy),
candles galore, warm blankets, a ten pound lap cat, and lots of candy.
jules hathaway





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