A wonderfully written middle-grade book with a dark, atmospheric, and nuanced take on the effects of persuasion and the influence of a “bad seed” amongst children and adults in a sleepy town

WOLF HOLLOW
by Lauren Wolk
Penguin/Dutton Children’s Books, TBA

WOLF HOLLOW is the story of 11-year old Annabelle McBride, who lives with her extended family in a community still greatly shaped by the Depression, and a sweet young man named Toby, damaged physically and emotionally by World War I. Into their world comes a young girl named Betty, who brings with her a harshness that Annabelle has never seen, and from whose torment she cannot escape. When Toby comes to Annabelle’s rescue he becomes Betty’s new target. Then Betty herself disappears and people assume that Toby, the strange young man with no ties to the community, has done her harm. It’s left to Annabelle to save Toby and as the story unfolds, she learns that the world, though beautiful, can also be a dark, dangerous, and unfair place no matter how hard she fights for justice. But she also learns that it’s important to wage that fight, regardless.

Lauren Wolk knows a thing or two about fighting for justice. After graduating from Brown University in 1981 with a degree in English literature, Lauren spent a year with the St. Paul American Indian Center, writing a book on domestic violence and how best to assist battered women in the Native American community. She then worked as a senior editor with an educational publisher in Toronto before starting a family and a business as a freelance writer and editor in 1988. In 1999, Random House published her first adult novel, Those Who Favor Fire. A year later she became a full-time, certified English teacher at Sturgis Charter School in Hyannis, Massachusetts.   She is now the Associate Director of the Cultural Center of Cape Cod. Wolk is also a visual artist represented by the Larkin Gallery in Provincetown, and an award-winning poet.