Twelve-year-old Joan is sure that she is going to hate her new home–but almost right away she finds a kindred spirit. “You’re lucky I didn’t just start throwing rocks at you. I can hide in the trees and nail a kid with a rock from thirty feet away.” That’s Sarah, who prefers to be called “Fox,” who lives with her writer father in a rundown house in the middle of the woods–near Joan’s suburb, but it feels like a totally different world. Joan and Sarah–Newt and Fox–spend all their spare time outside, and soon start writing stories together. When they win a contest, they’re recruited for a summer writing class taught by a free spirit named Verla Volante. “Verla said that you need to open a door so that people can walk into your world. . . . To do that, you have to pay attention.” The Wild Girls is about friendship, the power of story, and how growing up means finding your own answers–rather than simply taking adults on faith. From the Compact Disc edition.