The Wild Girls

WINNER OF THE CHRISTOPHER AWARD • A heartwarming coming-of-age tale that explores the journey of self-discovery that comes with growing up.

“A terrific mix of imagination, insight, character inventiveness and kindness create the kind of read that nourishes young minds and hearts.”—Kirkus Reviews

“A fantastic book. . . . Pat Murphy’s wonderful girls are as real and as lovable as characters get.”—Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Book Club

Twelve-year-old Joan is sure that she is going to be miserable in her new home. Then she meets a kindred spirit: Sarah, who prefers to be called “Fox” and who lives with her writer father in a rundown house in the middle of the woods.

Joan and Sarah—Newt and Fox—spend all their spare time outside, talking and fooling around, and soon start writing stories together. When they win first place in a student fiction contest, they’re recruited for a prestigious summer writing class taught by a free spirit named Verla Volante.

The Wild Girls is a stunning novel about friendship, the power of story, and how coming of age means finding your own answers—rather than simply taking adults on faith.