Echoing the tone and themes found in To Kill a Mockingbird and Summer of My German Soldier, this WWII story traces the unlikely friendship between a country girl and a shell-shocked veteran. Most people in Wolf Hollow, Pa., don't know what to make of Toby and his habit of circling the hills with "three long guns slung across his back." But he has always been kind to Annabelle, now 12, and he comes to her rescue when a bully torments her. After Toby is accused of a crime he didn't commit, Annabelle knows she has to take action, but her attempt to hide him from authorities spurs a chain of events that could lead to disaster. In her first book for children, Wolk (Those Who Favor Fire) movingly expresses Annabelle's loss of innocence through the honest, clear voice of her protagonist. Annabelle's astute observations of the South Carolina woods and the people who populate Wolf Hollow will resonate with many readers as they present a profound view of a complex era tinged by prejudice and fear. Ages 8-12. Agent: Jodi Reamer, Writers House. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

*Starred Review* Eleven-year-old Annabelle is living a relatively idyllic life on her family's Pennsylvania farm, until its normalcy is interrupted by Betty Glengarry, who has been sent to live with her grandparents because she is incorrigible. Betty's sullen presence quickly upsets the one-room school's traditional pecking order, and Annabelle and her younger brothers are Betty's favorite targets until Annabelle stands up to her. Not to be outdone, Betty shifts her attention to Toby, a strange WWI veteran already saddled with a dubious reputation within the community. Wolk conjures an aura of unease and dread from the first chapter, even as her pastoral setting and Annabelle's sunny family life seem to suggest that a happy ending is possible. The spare but hauntingly beautiful language paints every early morning walk to school, household chore, emotion, and rational and irrational thought in exquisite detail, while remaining true to Annabelle's early-adolescent voice. Her craft notwithstanding, Wolk is relentless in her message: lies and secrets, even for the most noble of reasons, have unintended consequences, as Annabelle's poignant dilemma reminds us long after the last page is turned. Perfectly pitched to be used in classrooms in conjunction with To Kill a Mockingbird.--Bradburn, Frances Copyright 2016 Booklist

Gr 5-8-In 1943 rural Pennsylvania, Annabelle is plagued by intense and violent bullying by new girl Betty-until Betty goes missing. The prime suspect is a local World War I vet and resident oddball, Toby. Annabelle knows Toby is innocent and sets out to prove it. Prejudice is not sugarcoated; Wolk displays deep respect for readers and trusts them to grapple with complex moral themes. A middle grade novel distinguished for its stark honesty and unflinching exploration of injustice. © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Two story lines wind around each other in this novel set in rural Pennsylvania in the 1940s. The narrator, twelve-year-old Annabelle, is one of the objects of vicious attacks by new girl Betty, who has inexplicably but relentlessly taken against her. In a supporting strand, a vagabond wanderer, Toby, a WWI vet suffering from what we would now identify as PTSD, is the victim of small-town prejudice as he is falsely accused of attacks that were in fact carried out by Betty. The plot proceeds with crime fiction logic and plausibility as Annabelle seeks out information, but then conceals what she knows, because who is going to believe a child's testimony? The adults, too, keep their secrets and maintain their masks. As the crimes become more serious -- and in one case, fatal -- Annabelle's role in protecting Toby becomes more and more difficult; the tension builds and never lets up. The storytelling here is dignified and the tone is memoir-ish, because Annabelle is remembering the story in the past. At points she seems a bit too wise and philosophical, but the portrait of Betty, an unredeemed sociopath, pulls no punches, and Toby is a nuanced and poignant character, an unlikely hero. sarah ellis (c) Copyright 2016. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

HARD TRUTHS ABOUND in "Wolf Hollow," Lauren Wolk's haunting coming-of-age novel, her first book for young readers. The hardest of all is this: Doing right can go very wrong. "The year I turned 12, I learned how to lie," Annabelle, the main character, tells us as the story opens. That year is 1943. World War II is raging, and families in Annabelle's rural Pennsylvania community have lost sons, but the conflict is a distant one. Annabelle's life, bounded by her family's farm and a one-room schoolhouse, is sheltered and safe. Her biggest worries are her annoying little brothers and the unruly older boys at school. She's never had cause to lie. Until the day Betty Glengarry arrives. A city girl, Betty has been sent to live with her grandparents because she's incorrigible. Her mother can't handle her; her father's gone. Betty's a bully - and much worse, it turns out, than incorrigible. "I didn't know a word that described Betty properly," Annabelle says, "or what to call the thing that set her apart from the other children in that school." Betty is a "dark-hearted girl," one without morals or remorse, who beats Annabelle with a stick and breaks a bird's neck. Annabelle is afraid of her, but she's also at an age where children are eager to prove their mettle, and decides to handle the threat herself. "Betty was mine to fear, and I decided that she was mine to disarm. If I could. On my own." She can't, though, and when Betty's cruelty escalates - with devastating consequences - Annabelle confides in her parents. When they confront Betty and her grandparents, the wily girl lies her way out of trouble and directs suspicion toward Toby - a reclusive, shellshocked veteran. Betty's determination to frame an innocent thrusts Annabelle into a predicament far more difficult than deciding whether or not to tattle on a bully. With a child's single-mindedness, she decides that the right thing to do is to protect Toby - even if pulling that off requires a few wrongs. That lies sometimes succeed while truth fails is only one of the tough complexities Annabelle must face. Early in the book, she recalls asking her grandfather how Wolf Hollow got its name. Long ago, he explains, the people who lived here dug pits to trap wolves. They shot the wolves that were getting "too brave and too many," and turned their ears in for a bounty. Thinking of the wolves in the pits saddens Annabelle, but her grandfather, "a serious man who always told me the truth, which I didn't always want," points out that she didn't mourn the snake he killed last spring. She replies that copperheads are poisonous, and "that's different." "Not to the snake, it isn't," her grandfather says. "Or to the God who made it." This god - the god of wolves, snakes and Betty Glengarry - is an ancient, feral deity, one unconcerned with human constructs of right and wrong, and Annabelle soon realizes that pitfalls dark and deep lie hidden on the path to adulthood, some of them large enough to swallow us whole. "Wolf Hollow" is beautifully written, with spare, simple language perfectly suited to its subject and setting. Annabelle narrates in the past tense, and Wolk uses this device to great effect, masterfully balancing a mood of aching regret with an electric sense of ominousness. Painting rural life with an even hand, she shows its beauty and its hardship, the strong ties that bind people who live in the country and the intolerance that sometimes finds root there. The book's narrative builds suspensefully toward an ending that's wrenching and true, and in its final pages, Annabelle learns to abide by life's complexities. She thinks of Wolf Hollow as "a dark place, no matter how bright its canopy, no matter how pretty the flowers that grew in its capricious light," but also the place "where I learned to tell the truth in that year before I turned 12: about things from which refuge was impossible. Wrong, even. No matter how tempting." With a precociously perceptive girl as a main character; a damaged, misunderstood recluse; and themes of prejudice and bigotry, comparisons to Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" will abound. But Wolk gives us her own story - one full of grace and stark, brutal beauty. JENNIFER DONNELLY'S latest book, "Sea Spell," will be published next month.