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412th out of 621 books
—
642 voters
The Wild Girls
by
Pat Murphy
It?s 1972. Twelve-year-old Joan is sure that she is going to be miserable when her family moves. Then she meets a most unusual girl. Sarah prefers to be called ?Fox,? and lives with her author dad in a rundown house in the middle of the woods. The two girls start writing their own stories together, and when one wins first place in a student contest, they find themselves re...more
Paperback, 288 pages
Published
October 16th 2008
by Speak
(first published January 1st 2007)
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In the story The Wild Girls, written by Pat Murphy is the story of two girls: Joan and Sarah. Joan is the new girl in town. She doesn’t fit in and doesn’t think she will make any friends until…she meets Sarah. Sarah doesn’t really fit in either; she is the quiet but adventurous type and would really like a friend she can explore with. Sarah lives with her father (who is a writer) in an old, run down house in the woods behind Joan’s new house. Sarah loves to play in and around the pond that they...more
I really enjoyed this while I was reading it. The characters had real problems, the adults were actually complicated and had their own journeys within the book, but didn't upstage the two main characters, Joan/Newt and Fox/Sarah. It was definitely refreshing that there weren't black-and-white characters; even the least sympathetic nevertheless had his moments. I did like the central idea of trying to understand the world and the people around you in order to write about them, and finding the cou...more
Twelve-year-old Joan moves to California from Connecticut in 1972 and is mad and scared. She is afraid she won't have any friends and can't seem to forgive her parents for making her move. As she explores outside her sub-division she discovers and befriends Fox, Sarah, the daughter of a writer and single father. Unlike Joan, Fox is comfortable in the woods, likes throwing rocks, exploring the culvert, and hanging out in her secret clearing. Joan is more comfortable in school, knows how to write...more
Nov 02, 2009
Julia Mcardle
added it
The Wild Grils is about two girls, Juan and Sarah, who want to get away from their home life, which isn’t too good, so they escape to the woods and have wild adventures and write stories about them. When they give one of their stories to a writing contest, and their story won, that’s when their lives really picked up. They start going to writing classes to get better at writing. But their home lives are getting worse. Juan’s parents are arguing and Sarah’s mom, who ran away from her as a child,...more
This book was one of my favorites. The title of the book is misleading. The "Wild Girls" are Joan and Sarah, aka "Newt" and "Fox." They are endearing characters. They meet when Joan and her family move from CT to CA, and Joan discovers Sarah hanging out in the woods. Both girls have some family issues to work out, and use writing to help them: Sarah's mom left her when she was younger, and Joan's dad is angry all the time and demeaning to other family members. The girls decide to enter a writing...more
I want to thank Mrs. Swisher for recommending and letting me borrow this book. The writing tips were great! I loved the becoming of age theme and I just loved how both Newt and Fox directed their pain and anger into their writing. The obstacles of life really do make you grow.
These girls needed God. A lot. But who doesn't?
It makes me angry sometimes when adults say things like, "Teenagers! They think they know everything!" or "She's a teenager, you know. Hormones." These things that people...more
These girls needed God. A lot. But who doesn't?
It makes me angry sometimes when adults say things like, "Teenagers! They think they know everything!" or "She's a teenager, you know. Hormones." These things that people...more
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.
The wild girls is a book about two girls who meet in Carlifornia. This two girls get to know each other and they find out that they have many stuff in common. They write a story in school and they win a book contest which makes them go to a Summer writing class. The two girls learn a lot during the writing class and they are also trying to write a book. The problem is that Sarah's mother come back while Joan's parents are fighting and planning to get a divorce.My favorite part of the book, or th...more
Sep 03, 2009
Claudia
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommended to Claudia by:
Dean and Maryann and Sonia
Shelves:
ya-books
Murphy did a great job of creating characters who learn through writing. She's almost given us a writing manual for aspiring authors. But at the same time, she's given us two wonderful characters who learn so much about themselves, and finally are able to see themselves as separate people from their parents. Newt has nearly been paralyzed by the toxic dynamics of her life and takes the advice of her wonderful hippy-dippy writing teacher to heart: see things from other people's points of view. Re...more
I didn't think it was fair to give this any rating because it would be biased by my opinion and not a fair rating based on the actual content of the book or the author's writing ability. Usually I rate based on a mix of opinion and the technical aspects of the writing but this time I think it would be unfair since the book was aimed at a younger audience and wasn't appealing to me at all.
Also I didn't finish the book. I got about 3/4 of the way through and was not interested. I only kept reading...more
Also I didn't finish the book. I got about 3/4 of the way through and was not interested. I only kept reading...more
Jan 30, 2009
BAYA Librarian
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
historical,
realistic
Y Twelve-year-old Joan has moved from Connecticut to Danville, California in 1972, where she befriends an unusual girl who calls herself Fox. They win a writing contest, and take a class at UC Berkeley for teen writers. Fox deals with a visit from her mother, who had abandoned Fox and her novelist father some time ago, and Joan deals with her parent's dissolving marriage. The writing class serves as a type of therapy for the girls, and several of the adult charachers are unusally well-developed...more
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
You know, I took a visit to my library today, and when I spotted this book on the shelf, I just knew that I had to read it, that it was meant for me.
I read "The Wild Girls" in one shot because it was so good. This book hit ridiculously close to home for me. There were definite hints of tears on several occasions, and one straight-out bawl-fest. The domestic abuse, Joan's relationship with her family, her personality, her situation at school, her love of writing, and using it to learn about other...more
I read "The Wild Girls" in one shot because it was so good. This book hit ridiculously close to home for me. There were definite hints of tears on several occasions, and one straight-out bawl-fest. The domestic abuse, Joan's relationship with her family, her personality, her situation at school, her love of writing, and using it to learn about other...more
Kidlit maven Peter Sieruta has stated that this is the book he thinks should have been awarded the Newbery Medal for 2008. Don't know if I agree, but his saying so is what finally got me to read this thing, and now I'm sorry I waited so long! This book is simply lovely, a great depiction of kids on the loose in summertime, and the tragedy of familial dysfunction. While I'm usually wary of children's fiction with a protagonist that wants to be a writer (sigh . . . so MANY of them want to be write...more
I read The Wild Girls by Pat Murphy. I gave it 5 stars even though this is normally a book that I wouldn't read. It was interesting in its own way.
Joan is a 12 year old girl that moved to California from Connecticut because her father made her family move. Her mom and dad fight all the time which makes Joan and her brother nervous around their dad. Sarah has a father who writes stories. Her mother left her when she was 7 at her school. Together they are Newt and Fox and they are the wild girls....more
Joan is a 12 year old girl that moved to California from Connecticut because her father made her family move. Her mom and dad fight all the time which makes Joan and her brother nervous around their dad. Sarah has a father who writes stories. Her mother left her when she was 7 at her school. Together they are Newt and Fox and they are the wild girls....more
Jan 01, 2013
Jannatul
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
favorites,
young-adult
I devoured this book in one sitting. It was about two girls that went to a writing class after their story won 1st place. This story was very unique and entertaining. The way the author connected the girls' lives to their writing was very fascinating. I loved when the girls' teacher told them to look in the perspective of both the antagonist and the protagonist. I had never really thought of writing that way, and the thought seemed very clever. I think this book will make people a better writer...more
Aug 07, 2012
Kaleigh
rated it
2 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
childrens-books,
fiction
I wish I could give it 2.5 stars. The concepts and the lessons in this book were great, which is why it got three stars from me, but I found the main character (or maybe it was just the dialogue) pretty blah. There was absolutely no emotion in the dialogue at all, that I could find. And the messages in the books were really good, although I also felt that they were presented in a way that was a little cliche. I also didn't really _feel_ that it was the 1970s, and I feel like that was an importan...more
This book made me laugh and made me cry.
It is wonderfully real in its depiction of children (friends "fox" and "Newt" who are not members of the glamor patrol) and their lives (in the style of Andrew Clements only differently...more deeply, less humorous!).
One character is a wonderful teacher of writing similar Blue Balliet's teachers. Another is a transformational facepainter/stiltwalker. The characters have depth and life.
Power of writing to transform lives and heal.
Could be merely an improvin...more
It is wonderfully real in its depiction of children (friends "fox" and "Newt" who are not members of the glamor patrol) and their lives (in the style of Andrew Clements only differently...more deeply, less humorous!).
One character is a wonderful teacher of writing similar Blue Balliet's teachers. Another is a transformational facepainter/stiltwalker. The characters have depth and life.
Power of writing to transform lives and heal.
Could be merely an improvin...more
A lovely, realistic story about friendship and growing up. While I wasn't always convinced that the 1970s setting was necessary, perhaps it enabled the story to exist in a world where there's a little more wild area for these wild girls to wander. They're the kind of girls I don't see enough of in realistic fiction (is it just me, or do they tend to live more in fantasy stories?) where they enjoy the outdoors and live vividly in their imaginations. The fact that they both love to write, and that...more
I don't read a ton of young adult fiction, but this book hit me in a tender spot and then unfolded it into a thing of delicate beauty. Read it if you want to recapture the point at which you first realized that you didn't know how to deal with your feelings.
The author takes this crucial developmental point, and then pulls us along as the main character discovers she can deal with these feelings using writing. When I was her age, I thought that reading and writing were what you do "to escape" bu...more
The author takes this crucial developmental point, and then pulls us along as the main character discovers she can deal with these feelings using writing. When I was her age, I thought that reading and writing were what you do "to escape" bu...more
Anyone can relate to this book. There are wonderful lessons to be learned It will hit closer to home among the intended buyer category- but I think all ages will enjoy. Both girls have trouble with their parents- what middle school girl doesn't! Joan's situation (arguing parents, pending divorce, overbearing father, etc) is slightly more common than Sarah's (mother abandoned). As you see both girls change you find yourself guessing the end time and time again. However, the end is certainly not p...more
Dec 07, 2010
Sarah Sullivan
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
young-adult,
audio-book
Beautifully crafted story about friendships, families, bravery and writing. I loved the way we saw the main character come into her own over the course of the story(and I love the way her growing identity as a writer, and her teacher helped this to happen). The relationships between characters, whether it was the friendship between the two girls, mother/daughter, father/daughter, teacher/student all felt complicated, truthful and meaningful. Every character, no matter how minor, was carefully wr...more
I actually listened to a wonderful recorded version of this book--the reader was absolutely incredible. The story and characters were even moreso--I love Newt and Fox. They are both middle school age girls going through very tough times in their lives and they help each other to weather and learn from these challenges in the best ways possible. I love their writing teacher and that the book is built around the subtext of learning to be a writer. Pat Murphy crafted such a compelling read. I will...more
Oct 08, 2011
Maureen Milton
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
seniors,
intermediates
When Joan's '70s-era family moves from Connecticut to California, she investigates her new neighborhood, wandering from the manicured middle-class lawns to the wild fringe. There she meets Fox, who with Joan (dubbed "Newt") explores the woods and the culvert and the stories therein, in contrast to their muted lives at school.
When they win a writing contest, they also win (through their bold, unusual presentation) the attention of a writing teacher, Verla Volante, in the audience, who asks them t...more
When they win a writing contest, they also win (through their bold, unusual presentation) the attention of a writing teacher, Verla Volante, in the audience, who asks them t...more
The Wild Girls is an amazing novel. Joan, later to be called Newt, has just moved from Conneticut to Danneville, California. She soon meets a strange, independent girl Sarah, called Fox by friends and family. The two girls become very close. Fox lives with her dad because her mom ran away when she was 7, but now Fox's mom wants to get a divorce and make ammends with Fox. Newt's parents still live together, but they are nearing the end of the line. Her dad is always angry and constantly fights ab...more
I felt like this book was written for me!
I loved the story and how central the writing class was to the book. The exercises were interesting and it was fun to read about how all the people in the writing class were loose nuts.
Fox and Newt were great characters and I liked reading about them. They were very 3-dimensional. Pat Murphy did an awesome job of helping you understand everyone in the book. Of course that was the premise of the book, but she fully succeeded.
I can't say enough good thin...more
I loved the story and how central the writing class was to the book. The exercises were interesting and it was fun to read about how all the people in the writing class were loose nuts.
Fox and Newt were great characters and I liked reading about them. They were very 3-dimensional. Pat Murphy did an awesome job of helping you understand everyone in the book. Of course that was the premise of the book, but she fully succeeded.
I can't say enough good thin...more
How I Got It:
- Another one of the 99-Peso Bunch
What It's About:
It is a story about friendship, exploring one's fancy imagination, and best of all, it teaches you how to be a writer in a very fascinating way. I read and re-read this book a few times already, going through the lessons and diligently taking down notes.
How It Made Me Feel:
It was a wonderful feeling to know that the magic of reading and writing is still shared by a lot of people. The "free" writing workshop I "attended" in the book w...more
- Another one of the 99-Peso Bunch
What It's About:
It is a story about friendship, exploring one's fancy imagination, and best of all, it teaches you how to be a writer in a very fascinating way. I read and re-read this book a few times already, going through the lessons and diligently taking down notes.
How It Made Me Feel:
It was a wonderful feeling to know that the magic of reading and writing is still shared by a lot of people. The "free" writing workshop I "attended" in the book w...more
Feb 08, 2010
Anita Prince
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
realistic-fiction
Joan is angry because her father moved the family to California, so she wanders down the dirt path behind her house until she happens upon Sarah's hideaway, a small clearing with an easy chair beneath a walnut tree. Together, they write "Wild Girls," a short story that wins first prize in the young writer's contest. Afterwards, their parents enroll them in a summer writing course taught by Verla Volante. Verla teaches the girls to observe and question their world; to "drop a pebble in a pond and...more
This is one of those books that a lot of grownups who work in bookstores have been all excited about, but I haven't heard a lot of feedback from kids yet.
I really liked it. It reminded me of Wild Things by Clay Carmichael because one of the main characters is a girl who has lost her mother, but she is very creative and talented and finds an usual family through the other people in her life.
Although it's a common story line, the characters are true-to-life, and the whole story is really beautifu...more
I really liked it. It reminded me of Wild Things by Clay Carmichael because one of the main characters is a girl who has lost her mother, but she is very creative and talented and finds an usual family through the other people in her life.
Although it's a common story line, the characters are true-to-life, and the whole story is really beautifu...more
Book talk: Before Joan moved to California she only read stories. After she moved to California, Joan began to live them. It all started when she was exploring in the woods near her house and she found what looked like a troll's living room. It turned out that it belonged to a girl named Sarah who called herself the Queen of Foxes. Joan soon became newt in turn and newt and fox explored secret grottoes, defended their fort from invaders, and hid in the woods. Their real life mixed with a fantasy...more
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LOVED | 7 | 7 | May 03, 2013 11:14am | |
| What did YOU think?!?!?! | 1 | 5 | Dec 08, 2011 01:55pm |
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“I've learned to write the truth. But to do that, I had to figure out what the truth was-and I had to realize that the truth isn't always the same for everyone. I had to realize that my truth may not be the same as your truth.”
—
11 people liked it
“I read books when I was a kid, lots of books. Books always seemed like magic to me. They took you to the most amazing places. When I got older, I realized I couldn’t find books that took me to all the places I wanted to go. To go to those places, I had to write some books myself.”
—
6 people liked it
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Leila M.
May 11, 2011 01:40am