About 4 days ago, I (finally) finished my book, Wolf Hollow, written by Lauren Wolk. This book is set in a World War II era, and is about a girl named Annabelle who has lived a quiet, stable life in her little town of Pennsylvania. But her life is soon turned upside down when dark-hearted new girl Betty walks into class one day. Just after a few weeks, Betty has caused havoc in class, scared the little children at school, beat Annabelle with a stick, and had even suffocated a quail. But things really take a turn for the worse when Betty condemns Toby, a World War I veteran, of wrongdoings he has no idea even happened. Toby soon becomes the most wanted man in town, but Annabelle knows who he really is behind that rough-looking stature. But as the arrival of Betty causes more and more issues in the town of Wolf Hollow, Annabelle realizes she needs to get up the courage to speak-whether she wants to or not.
Some of the key pieces of the book were the characters, setting, plot. One thing I liked about the way the author dealt with Annabelle is because feeling were described openly throughout the book, giving us time to actually understand her.The way the author dealt with the characters was especially unique because she didn’t add many in the story. I personally also liked that Annabelle described her feelings openly throughout the book, giving us time to actually understand her. This is something I enjoyed and didn’t enjoy at the same time. What I enjoyed about it is the fact that I was able to focus fully on the characters and their personality, rather than having to focus on more of them, giving only half my attention, which would result in me misunderstanding the plot. Something I didn’t like about it is that the plot could have been spiced up a bit with more characters at the center, other than just Annabelle and Betty. For example, they could have had Betty have a sibling, rather than her only living with her grandma and grandpa. It could have flavored the plot a little more because there would have been a bit more people against (and maybe even with) Betty Another thing I didn’t like is, we didn’t get the whole of Betty’s backstory. This could explain how she grew up to be so dark-hearted and malevolent.
Next, the setting. The setting I especially liked because it was set in a WWII era, something I haven’t seen much in other books. It is interesting to see how people communicated without phones, cooked stuff without modern cooking inventions, and how they substituted modern medicines with herbs from the garden.
And, finally, the plot. I both liked and didn’t like the plot for a few reasons. I liked the plot because it was fast-paced. One reason I liked this is the author didn’t dwell on each problem slowly and move on, and that the arrival of each plot caught you by surprise. The plot was also very eye-opening and appealed to me as soon as I opened the book. What I didn’t like about this plot is that it could have slowed down a little, too, so I could have had a bit of time to string the multiple subplots together. That didn’t give me enough time to dwell on each subplot and fully understand the story.
Overall, I find this an entertaining read. It made me look into a different time period. I know most of the facts about WWII, but seeing it from the eyes of a child in that era, it was easier to see how they (the children of WWII) felt about their current crisis. Above, we discussed the things I liked and didn’t like about the plot. I feel this would be a good read for middle schoolers who like historic events made into realistic fiction.
