Brilliantly crafted, Wolf Hollow is a haunting tale of America at a crossroads and a time when one girl’s resilience, strength, and compassion help to illuminate the darkest corners of our history. (Summary and pic from goodreads.com)
My Review: Wolf Hollow is
the third stop on my tour of 2017’s Newbery Award winners. As with the winner
this year—The Girl Who Drank the Moon,
and one of the Honorable Mentions, TheInquisitor’s Tale, this Honorable Mention was also a very powerful,
well-written book.
One of the things I have really enjoyed about this year’s
Newbery Award choices was the diversity of them. The Girl Who Drank the Moon was a fun and allegorical fairytale
that obviously had real-world application, but was also just fun because it was
an allegorical fairytale. The Inquisitor’s
Tale was hilarious and beautifully illustrated and a really unique book
that did an excellent job of creating the world in which it took place. Wolf Hollow is an excellent book that
had an old-timey feel about it, with a great grasp of the best parts of
historical fiction, but also the very real applicability of a book that kids
today could relate to.
I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book. I feel like
I say that a lot. I love to be happily surprised. (Who doesn’t?) I always have
high hopes for award winners, especially ones that are as prestigious as the
Newbery Award. But let’s face it—some of those early Newbery winners couldn’t
hold a candle to the winners today. JFic has become an extremely competitive
genre, and I think that’s due not only to more adults reading and enjoying JFic
(because let’s face it, sometimes adulting is hard), but also because today’s
kids are facing situations that are very complex and layered and they are
understanding and experiencing commensurate to what they are reading. I, for
one, have very much enjoyed what the JFic genre has had to offer for the past several
years.
One of the things that surprised me most about Wolf Hollow was the old timey feel about
it. It reminded me of historical fiction books from a long time ago—the kind
that don’t necessarily bring you right to living in the time it takes place,
but more like helping you remember another time, another place. Does that make
sense? It’s not like I was living in the world, I felt like I was watching the
world it was taking place in. It was fascinating, actually. Wolk does an
excellent job of setting time and place and explaining things in a way that
just really takes you back. Not that I lived during this time, of course, (WWI
is a very long time ago, even if you think I’m old, which I’m not). For
instance, in the very beginning of the book she’s describing how the main
character doesn’t think she’s rich, and then proceeds to tell about the home
she lives in, the little extras like the small stained glass window in their
house, and it just creates this very real portrait of the world as well as what
the narrator is like. It’s great.
I very much enjoyed the characters in this book. They
made the story, of course. As I’m sure you can tell from the description, this
is a sad book. There is so much hurt and misunderstanding and sometimes that’s
really frustrating not only to read about, but to live in real life as well.
And so I appreciated the honesty in that sense. I also appreciated that for the
most part, people were good and trying to give each other the benefit of the doubt.
I like this in real life and I also enjoyed it in the book. My world view is
such that I believe people really are like this.
Lastly, I thought the writing was fantastic, as you might
expect from a winner of such a prestigious award. It was beautiful and poignant
and felt like it was written by a young pre-teen, even though it was also very
complex in its simplicity and insight. There was a lot to be learned not only
from what was being said, but by the subtle nuances as well.
I really think this was a great book. I appreciated the
lessons it had to teach, and definitely recommend it to those who love JFic.
My Rating: 5 Stars
For the sensitive
reader: There is some child on child violence and also some sad scenes. I felt
like these things were all dealt with on a level that JFic readers would be sad
to read about, but could understand and relate to.
1 comment:
I just finished this a few days ago, and while overall I liked the book, I had I very hard time with the arc the story took once Annabelle's parents became, essentially, accomplices in her lies with regards to Toby and his whereabouts. That seemed so out of character, especially for the setting when integrity meant everything. I lost respect for the characters after that...
Post a Comment