book data
97 ratings, 4.28 average rating, 39 reviews
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published
October 18th 2007
by Viking Juvenile
binding
Hardcover, 272 pages
setting
Unknown
isbn
067006226X
(isbn13: 9780670062263)
description
It is the early 1970s. Twelve-year-old Joan is sure that she is going to be miserable when her family moves from Connecticut to California. Then she m...more
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 146)
Wow. This was a superb book.
Joan, or as she sometimes is call, Newt, moves to a new place where she is sure she will hate. But once there, she goes for a walk in the forest and meets a girl. The Queen of the Foxes, or just plain Fox. Fox is new, adventures and exiting, opening up a new world for Newt as she begins to explore who she is while struggling with family problems. She begins to write, opening new leads and meeting new people. I love this book. It rocks.
Joan, or as she sometimes is call, Newt, moves to a new place where she is sure she will hate. But once there, she goes for a walk in the forest and meets a girl. The Queen of the Foxes, or just plain Fox. Fox is new, adventures and exiting, opening up a new world for Newt as she begins to explore who she is while struggling with family problems. She begins to write, opening new leads and meeting new people. I love this book. It rocks.
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Read in January, 2008
The wild girls. A great book for teen age girls. i learned even if your diffrent from everyone else it doesnt matter. you can be friends with who you choose to be friends with. i got a good view of this book. its about a girl named joan she moved to a new home and she thought she was going to be miserable. She was wondering around the forest near her house. she met a girl named sarah. they became best friends they did everything together. Sarahs dad was kinda poor he wrote books her mother left ...more
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Read in December, 2008
I got this for Emma for Christmas and picked it up to read while traveling. I loved it. I can't wait for her to read it. If you know any middle school girls and need a book suggestion, keep this in mind. It's about two twelve year old girls. Both have difficult home situations. Both are somewhat misfits at school. They find comfort and acceptance in one another. They discover that reading and writing makes them understand themselves and others more. It makes them step out of their comfo...more
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The Wild Girls is a book for writers. It's a book for girls who don't always follow the rules and for girls who play with spotted newts. As a girl who enjoys writing, newts, and occasional rule-breaking, I fell in love immediately.
Pat Murphy tells the story of two girls -- the rule-following Joan (aka Newt), who just moved to California from Connecticut and has always written the kinds of stories she thought her teacher would like, and Sarah (aka Fox), who hangs out throwing rocks in the woo...more
Pat Murphy tells the story of two girls -- the rule-following Joan (aka Newt), who just moved to California from Connecticut and has always written the kinds of stories she thought her teacher would like, and Sarah (aka Fox), who hangs out throwing rocks in the woo...more
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Read in January, 2008
recommended to Sarah by:
see if it was JR appropriaterecommends it for: grades 6-8
This book was just okay, but the part about her mean dad made me want to cry!
~
When Joan and her family move from Connecticut to California in 1972, she hates everything at first. Then, while exploring the neighborhood (and avoiding helping her mother unpack) she meets a girl named Sarah, who calls herself Fox—Queen of the Foxes. Joan’s life isn’t quite the same after that.
Fox and Joan—who soon chooses the nickname Newt for herself—become friends. They spend time in the o...more
~
When Joan and her family move from Connecticut to California in 1972, she hates everything at first. Then, while exploring the neighborhood (and avoiding helping her mother unpack) she meets a girl named Sarah, who calls herself Fox—Queen of the Foxes. Joan’s life isn’t quite the same after that.
Fox and Joan—who soon chooses the nickname Newt for herself—become friends. They spend time in the o...more
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Read in December, 2008
I loved the book. I love Joan's story. Her friendship with Fox. How they found strength as individuals through their relationship. The enjoyment of playing in the woods and of course writing insights. Verla's guidance as writers enhanced their abilities to deal with change and challenges in their lives. No wonder I liked it. Writing was certainly my solace during divorce and other bad times.
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Read in November, 2008
What a jump in design from the hardcover edition to the paperback!
Incredible. Give this book to aspiring writers. heck, published writers. to middle grade girls and their mothers. to "loose nuts." to kids with different kinds of families. to girls who need to use war paint to discover they don't need to use war paint.
I already have a few people in mind. mevans, I'm looking at you!
Incredible. Give this book to aspiring writers. heck, published writers. to middle grade girls and their mothers. to "loose nuts." to kids with different kinds of families. to girls who need to use war paint to discover they don't need to use war paint.
I already have a few people in mind. mevans, I'm looking at you!
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Read in December, 2008
This book is about two twelve year old girls who have to struggle with family problems, being the new girl, being socially on the fringe. It is about friendship and being true to one's self. It takes place in California in the 70's which also makes it interesting. I really liked it, and gave it to my twelve-year-old to read after I finished it.
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Read in December, 2008
recommends it for:
10+
Good story. It's about two girls who make friends and love p;laying outside. Then they start writing a story whom some of the characters realate to people they know. When they win a contest they get the oppurtunity of taking a summer writing class. A great read if you like writting and friendship. Good read and i before i even read the book i was already relating to the characters.
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Read in December, 2008
Wow - I could relate to so many of these characters - they seem to be splintered off of my personality. This is now one of my favorite books - maybe because like so many women, we were once wild girls that strayed into domesticality - but remember the call of the wild - and dream about it vividly and may soon break out of all that binds us and become wild again...
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Read in December, 2007
I enjoyed this book very much, and I would have loved it even more as a teenager. I would have been jealous of two girls having adventures in the woods and writing a story that wins a contest and gets them into a cool summer writing class at UC Berkeley. As it is, I loved reading about Berkeley in 1972, many years before I got to explore it as a youth myself. And I loved how Murphy created two fascinating girl characters whose friendship helps them deal with problems in their families and the di...more
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Read in December, 2008
It's a good book so far...kinda weird, and I would prefer the author to be more descriptive, but it has a good storyline.
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Read in March, 2008
You could look at this as just a book about a couple of girls who take a writing class. But it's also about the Wild Girls who live in the woods, one of whom is Queen of the Foxes and the other who has a princess for a mother. And when the Wild Girls start to take part in the stuttering family relationships around them, things aren't ever quite the same again. Especially with the stilt-walking and face-painting and all. Not only a book for the writer-wannabe, but for the timid and those who are ...more
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Very enjoyable realistic juvenile fiction. I thought this was a very good read. Different from my usual books with no sci fi/fantasy or wild, outlandish adventures thrown in. I thought it cleverly dealt with real family issues (without being overly graphic or tragic) and used a writing class as a clever foil to showing readers how to look at life through other points of view and not simply there own. A good book, although I was disappointed when a few mild swear words showed up in the last f...more
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This is an expansion of the short story "Wild Girls" that I liked so much in the collection Witpunk. At first I didn't like the changes that were made to expand this from a short story to a YA novel but most of them did grow on me, especially the changes to the mother. The story remains very simple, still structured around writing as self-discovery and performance of the self: this seems to be a common device of Pat Murphy's, but I ...more
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Read in April, 2008
recommends it for:
Anyone who likes creative books or writing fiction.
I REALLY liked this book. I think it has made it to my top favorites. It is very artistic and I love Murphy's imagery. The storyline is a good one, no doubt about that. Joan meets Sarah, who likes to be called "fox", and her whole life is changed. Joan and Fox become very good friends, and join a writing contest which changes their lives. Joan's perspective on life is changed, and that of her family too. This is an amazing book that I couldn't put down. I reccomend it for
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Read in January, 2009
This book focuses on the lives of Newt and Fox, or Joan and Sarah, as the civilized world would know them. They are the wild girls, using writing to escape the insanity that surrounds their lives. Every time I read a page, I have to put it down to start writing myself. The adjectives and descriptions are so well put together that I can't stop reading, and I dread the end. Hopefully this novel will inspire me to write, as it shows how writing can heal you.
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Read in January, 2008
Joan and Sarah, or Newt and Fox, are imaginative girls who like to play in the forest. Fox's mother left long ago, and Joan's family is made miserable by her angry father. They write a story that gets them into a writing class, where they begin to think about those around them. Very good story that resonates at several levels. Went a bit over the top with several the bird-named people in Berkeley. Worth reading.
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