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Summary
Summary
Polly Greene has always been considered strange, a girl who can see a person's true colors, a thirteen-year-old more comfortable foraging in the woods with her eccentric grandmother than hanging out with friends. But all that is about to change when Polly's older sister, Bree, vanishes into the woods. The only one who believes Bree can survive, Polly begins to leave food in the woods for her sister and finds a hidden grove she names Girlwood, where she believes Bree is burning afire each night. Along with an odd but endearing group of friends, Polly clings to the hope that she can see her sister through the harsh, snowy winter. And, in the process, she discovers the cruelty, bounty, and magic of the woods. Will Polly save her sister? And even if she does, will Girlwood survive?
Author Notes
Claire Dean writes from a bright green house behind an ever-growing garden in Idaho. She was inspired to write Girlwood for her daughter, who asked for a story about good stuff. 'When I asked her what that meant, she said, a��You know, about hope and magic and fairies and girls.' Good stuff, indeed.' Next up is a story for the author's son. To learn more about Girlwood and to find out what color aura you have, visit Claire Dean at www.clairedean.net.
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 6-8-Twelve-year-old Polly is beset by trouble in her rural Idaho home. Her parents have divorced, and her punk and probably pregnant older sister, Bree, has run away. Her former friend's father is bulldozing the majestic larch trees of the old forest to "make the woods more accessible" to rich dwellers in a new gated community. But, Polly can see auras; understands the herbal teachings of her New Age grandmother, Baba; and uses her talents as best she can to forestall the inevitable destruction. Believing Bree is hiding in the forest, she leaves offerings throughout the winter. Herbal teachings-some dangerous, with warnings for would-be experimenters-begin each chapter. But Baba uses herbal teas to drug Polly's overwrought mother several times, and with few exceptions, adults behave abominably and stupidly. The natural details may ring true but the stereotypical narrow-mindedness of the rural community is unchallenged and the New Agey tone will put off many readers.-Susan Hepler, formerly at Burgundy Farm Country Day School, Alexandria, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Dean's first YA novel feels of-the-moment with its hopeful environmentalist message. At its start, Polly, the earthy, wistful 12-year-old protagonist, wakes up to find her teenage sister, wild child Bree, missing. The search goes on in the background as Polly and her friends fight to keep the bulldozers away from her beloved forest, a magical place where Bree could be hiding. Each chapter opens with a description of a medicinal and edible plant that Polly and her wise grandmother find in those woods. This premise sometimes bogs down with mentions of Bree's cliched problems. But mostly Dean succeeds in creating a fast-paced story and sympathetic characters that eco-minded readers will appreciate. In their deep woods hideout, called Girlwood, Polly and pals uncover secrets about themselves and their world. "The forest could have been Fairyland... the dawn sky like a field of tulips, the new snow twinkling pink, green, and blue, as if even the ground they walked on was enchanted," Dean writes in a typically lush passage. The best wrought element of the book, though, may not be in the forest at all--it might be the satisfying ending. Ages 12-up. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
After her older sister, Bree, runs away, Polly, with her grandmother's help, discovers Girlwood, a mystical spot in the woods where Polly believes Bree is hiding. When the wilderness is threatened by developers, Polly must look within herself to find the true spirit that keeps Girlwood alive. Dean's imagery is beautifully evocative. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Despite its genuinely gorgeous cover and illustrations, this story and its characters never come to life on the page. Twelve-year-old Polly loves the woods around her Idaho home, where her dad has moved to a cabin and her grandmother Baba gathers wild plants for healing. Polly's older sister Bree, deep into drugs and boys, disappears, and over the winter Polly and Baba leave food and clothing for her in a secluded part of the forest called Girlwood. Polly has a lot to cope with: mean girls at school, her best friend's betrayal, her parents' separation and the developer who plans to bulldoze the forest to build a gated community. There is way too much telling rather than showing and an overabundance of preaching about plant life and ecology, all of it overlaid with Polly's ability, never fully integrated into the story, to see people's auras and the wood fairies of her father's stories. The Lessons are writ large, but the tale itself is a wisp writ small. (Fiction. 12+) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Dean's intriguing first novel twines together a mystery about a girl's runaway sibling with an Idaho community's conservation debate. When news arrives that plans for a subdivision threaten a beloved patch of wilderness, the grief 12-year-old Polly feels amplifies her anxiety for her troubled, missing sister, who Polly believes has taken shelter in a grove within the threatened wilderness. Too many subplots crowd Dean's storytelling, with the illness of Polly's herbalist grandmother adding unnecessary weight, and the unsatisfactorily (though not unhappily) resolved mystery strand doesn't entirely work. It's Dean's celebration of the earthy, living magic that exists everywhere, in everything, all the time that will lure YAs, who may be especially fascinated by the deepened experience of the world Polly gleans from her ability to glimpse others' auras. Dean even includes training instructions for readers hoping to see auras, too. Offer this to readers drawn by Wiccan spiritualities never mentioned here by name, but which seem to inform Dean's richly green-tinted storytelling, rooted in the connections between wild places and womanly strength.--Mattson, Jennifer Copyright 2008 Booklist