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4.14 AVERAGE
4.14 AVERAGE
Absolutely loved this book! I think Lauren Wolf could write a yard sale ad, and I would be enchanted by it. The characters are sympathetic without making the story sappy, and the plot is intricate without being overly wrought. I highly recommend!
Beautifully written. Annabelle's twelve year old voice is honest and brave. I did spend most of this novel with a knot in my stomach, similar to how I felt reading [book:Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry|310459]. You just never feel that the characters are safe. The ending was satisfying and I would love to read this with a young adult book club to see their take on it.
Grades 7 and up.
Grades 7 and up.
The characters, the story, the descriptions, all so very beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time. The ending left me in tears. Don’t let the “young reader” label turn you away. Lots can be gained by all ages from reading this story. Just know it’s not a “happy ending” sort out of book, but true to life.
"For if my life was to be but a single note in an endless symphony, how could I not sound it out for as long and as loudly as I could." - Wolf Hollow
Books about bullies always make me uncomfortable. I feel so badly for the kid being bullied. Wolf Hollow started me off with that pit in my stomach feeling. But the heroine Annabelle turned it around for me.
Standing up for the truth no matter the consequence.
Great YA read
Standing up for the truth no matter the consequence.
Great YA read
Annabelle lives in Wolf Hollow with her family. As she goes to school each day she is taunted by Betty who demands things from her or she will harm her. When Betty goes missing everyone immediately thinks that Toby, the drifter in the area, is the guilty one. Will they find Betty? Will Annabelle tell what she knows about what happened and help the drifter? This is a Newbery Honor book.
Wolf Hollow is not a book I would have picked up on my own. I read Wolf Hollow because it is on the list of Maud Hart Lovelace nominees for 2020. I know, also, that it was Newbery Honor book in 2017. I listened to this one on Audio and did not have any preconceived ideas about the story before I began.
The main character is Annabelle McBride, almost twelve, living in a small town in Pennsylvania in the 1940s. She lives with her parents, grandparents, two younger brothers and her Aunt Lily on their farm. Soon after we are introduced to Annabelle she meets Betty Glengarry. Betty has come to stay with her grandparents and it is implied that she had difficulties in her own community, though very little is revealed about her history. Betty is an out-and-out bully. She terrorizes Annabelle--and later, her brothers.
There is also a man who lives in town, named Toby. He is a World War I veteran who has obviously been severely affected by what he saw and experienced on the battle lines. He's regarded as strange by the majority of townspeople, but Annabelle's mother has always been kind to him and Annabelle has never known Toby to be frightening--just odd. For unknown reasons, Betty begins to include Toby as a target in her schemes. Events begin to steamroll and get horribly out of control involving Betty, Toby, Annabelle and her family--and eventually the entire town.
I disliked this book for a number of reasons. I have to qualify my opinion by saying I have a hard time (and often will not finish) books that involve violence toward children, animals or vulnerable adults. This book has all three. In reading other reviews of Wolf Hollow I notice that many readers think the violence level is too intense for middle grades. I have a lower threshold for these types of violence due to my own personal history and have concerns about the violence in this book and I think I would want to know my child/student was reading about it so I could check in with them but I don't necessarily think it is out of bounds for a middle grade reader. It depends entirely on the reader. Also, I can sometimes withstand reading the violent situations when they are balanced by a need in the plot structure. I don't feel that was the case in Wolf Hollow.
Some reviewers have compared Wolf Hollow to To Kill a Mockingbird--which I find ludicrous, as well insulting to Mockingbird. I cared about the characters in Mockingbird and was engaged in the story from the beginning. Wolf Hollow was a long, plodding narrative with a main character I really didn't care much about, and often found irritating. The pacing of the story was unbearably slow. It was a real effort to finish it.
I respect the author for her courage in writing a middle grade novel that doesn't tie everything up with a pretty bow at the end in an unrealistic fashion. However, I was underwhelmed with the result. There are much better stories out there that show children transitioning from a naïve, idealistic view of the world to a more realistic--and often disheartening--one. Lisa Moore Ramee's contemporary novel A Good Kind of Trouble is a great example. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson is another story that doesn't end as predictably as most middle grade novels, allowing a child to conceive of a result she had neither originally anticipated nor wanted.
I would NOT recommend the audio version of this book either, as the narrator did not create effective distinctions between the characters. I don't think Wolf Hollow will be a popular choice with young readers, nor would I recommend it to any. This is one of those 'award' books that feels to me as if it has been chosen by adults of the opinion that young readers should read it, rather than looking at whether the actual structure, characters and pacing support the content. In my opinion, Wolf Hollow does not.
The main character is Annabelle McBride, almost twelve, living in a small town in Pennsylvania in the 1940s. She lives with her parents, grandparents, two younger brothers and her Aunt Lily on their farm. Soon after we are introduced to Annabelle she meets Betty Glengarry. Betty has come to stay with her grandparents and it is implied that she had difficulties in her own community, though very little is revealed about her history. Betty is an out-and-out bully. She terrorizes Annabelle--and later, her brothers.
There is also a man who lives in town, named Toby. He is a World War I veteran who has obviously been severely affected by what he saw and experienced on the battle lines. He's regarded as strange by the majority of townspeople, but Annabelle's mother has always been kind to him and Annabelle has never known Toby to be frightening--just odd. For unknown reasons, Betty begins to include Toby as a target in her schemes. Events begin to steamroll and get horribly out of control involving Betty, Toby, Annabelle and her family--and eventually the entire town.
I disliked this book for a number of reasons. I have to qualify my opinion by saying I have a hard time (and often will not finish) books that involve violence toward children, animals or vulnerable adults. This book has all three. In reading other reviews of Wolf Hollow I notice that many readers think the violence level is too intense for middle grades. I have a lower threshold for these types of violence due to my own personal history and have concerns about the violence in this book and I think I would want to know my child/student was reading about it so I could check in with them but I don't necessarily think it is out of bounds for a middle grade reader. It depends entirely on the reader. Also, I can sometimes withstand reading the violent situations when they are balanced by a need in the plot structure. I don't feel that was the case in Wolf Hollow.
Some reviewers have compared Wolf Hollow to To Kill a Mockingbird--which I find ludicrous, as well insulting to Mockingbird. I cared about the characters in Mockingbird and was engaged in the story from the beginning. Wolf Hollow was a long, plodding narrative with a main character I really didn't care much about, and often found irritating. The pacing of the story was unbearably slow. It was a real effort to finish it.
I respect the author for her courage in writing a middle grade novel that doesn't tie everything up with a pretty bow at the end in an unrealistic fashion. However, I was underwhelmed with the result. There are much better stories out there that show children transitioning from a naïve, idealistic view of the world to a more realistic--and often disheartening--one. Lisa Moore Ramee's contemporary novel A Good Kind of Trouble is a great example. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson is another story that doesn't end as predictably as most middle grade novels, allowing a child to conceive of a result she had neither originally anticipated nor wanted.
I would NOT recommend the audio version of this book either, as the narrator did not create effective distinctions between the characters. I don't think Wolf Hollow will be a popular choice with young readers, nor would I recommend it to any. This is one of those 'award' books that feels to me as if it has been chosen by adults of the opinion that young readers should read it, rather than looking at whether the actual structure, characters and pacing support the content. In my opinion, Wolf Hollow does not.
This is a four star book, but I personally hate reading this type of conflict because it makes me sick to my stomach.
When I was in third grade, I looked at the bookcase that divided the third grade classroom from the fourth grade classroom and decided I would read it. The bookcase. And I did. (Goodreads friends, it should not surprise you that 9 year-old Jenna was peak geek.)
I read just about every book on the shelves, which meant a lot of dusty books set in the first half of the twentieth century. (Did you catch that detail about the third grade singular classroom being divided from the fourth grade singular classroom by a bookcase set back against a side wall? Yeah, we did not have a well-stocked modern library.)
Why is all of this relevant? Because I felt like I'd already read Wolf Hollow.
Some of the plot details were inventive, sure, but it just felt like one of the musty third grade books, with a splash of Boo Radley. Perhaps it's been so lauded recently because such books have become rare. Maybe I just read a weird amount of them. But I couldn't quite shake the feeling that I already knew Annabelle and Betty.
I read just about every book on the shelves, which meant a lot of dusty books set in the first half of the twentieth century. (Did you catch that detail about the third grade singular classroom being divided from the fourth grade singular classroom by a bookcase set back against a side wall? Yeah, we did not have a well-stocked modern library.)
Why is all of this relevant? Because I felt like I'd already read Wolf Hollow.
Some of the plot details were inventive, sure, but it just felt like one of the musty third grade books, with a splash of Boo Radley. Perhaps it's been so lauded recently because such books have become rare. Maybe I just read a weird amount of them. But I couldn't quite shake the feeling that I already knew Annabelle and Betty.