How frightening is it to desperately want to fit in with the cool crowd in a new school? To not be the outcast, the dork, the dweeb, the gross kid? How much would you let yourself be led into situations you are not comfortable with - with kids you don't know well enough to trust? What do you do when it all goes terribly wrong?
When Kammie falls into the well where her feet don't touch the bottom, the depth remaining unknown, and has to rely on girls who tricked her to stand on top of it in the first place - girls who seem more aggravated by this new event than concerned - Kammie starts to deeply regret her choices even as fear begins to consume her.
I will say that this book holds you in suspense about Kammie's outcome, and at the same time it always remains firmly in the diction and thought pattern of a young girl. The wording and actions are true to that age. You might say that girls that young would not perhaps leave another one in such a predicament and would run immediately to an adult, but sadly that is not always true.
A good book to keep a reader interested and also perhaps open their eyes to trying so hard to fit in with a certain crowd.
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Algonquin Young Readers
March 15, 2016
Click HERE to read first 2 chapters and bonus material.
Click HERE to read Karen's Essay on how this story came to be.
A hilarious and heartwrenching story about a bullied girl whose search for a new beginning takes a dire wrong turn.
Newcomer Kammie Summers has fallen into a well during a (fake) initiation into a club whose members have no intention of letting her join. Now Kammie’s trapped in the dark, growing increasingly claustrophobic, and waiting to be rescued—or possibly not.
As hours pass, the reality of Kammie’s predicament mixes with her memories of the highlights and lowlights of her life so far, including the reasons her family moved to this new town in the first place. And as she begins to run out of oxygen, Kammie starts to imagine she has company, including a French-speaking coyote and goats that just might be zombies.
Karen Rivers has created a unique narrator with an authentic, sympathetic, sharp, funny voice who tells a story perfect for fans of Flora and Ulysses, Reign Rein, and Counting by 7s. The Girl in the Well Is Me will have readers laughing and crying and laugh-crying over the course of its physically and emotionally suspenseful, utterly believable events.
A top ten Spring 2016 Kids’ Indie Next List Pick
Karen Rivers has created a unique narrator with an authentic, sympathetic, sharp, funny voice who tells a story perfect for fans of Flora and Ulysses, Reign Rein, and Counting by 7s. The Girl in the Well Is Me will have readers laughing and crying and laugh-crying over the course of its physically and emotionally suspenseful, utterly believable events.
A top ten Spring 2016 Kids’ Indie Next List Pick
