Neither character-driven nor plot-driven, middle-grade author Porter's first YA novel is a message-driven story about three teenage girls who have suffered at the hands of men. The 16-year-old title character has been stabbed, raped, and left to die of hypothermia in the woods near her home. Her voice alternates with those of two friends, Nyetta and Eve, who are coping with their own betrayals by men in their lives (Nyetta's father abandoned her family; Eve was molested by a coach). Lark, meanwhile, faces further victimization after her death—she will, like other murdered girls, be imprisoned forever in a tree if no one truly acknowledges what happened to her. It's neither clear what supernatural agency would inflict such a fate nor why the acknowledgement of law enforcement is insufficient, but Eve and Nyetta must come to terms with their own lives, and with Lark's death, for all three to move on. Porter (Billy Creekmore) develops strong, distinct voices for each girl, but they are the flat characters of a parable. Ages 12–up. (June)
Haunting natural imagery depicting Lark’s gradual transformation interweaves beautifully with Porter’s nuanced portrayal of what it’s like to be a girl navigating an often confusing, sometimes dangerous world. ” — Horn Book (starred review)
“This is a haunting addition to the ‘dead girl’ genre that treats the survivors’ emotions, guilt, and pain gently and with a great deal of understanding.” — ALA Booklist
“The concise narrative holds deep and honest emotions as the characters go through the stages of dealing with Lark’s untimely and gruesome death. An excellent addition to YA collections.” — School Library Journal
Praise for BILLY CREEKMORE: “Billy’s voice makes the shocking history about the lives of children at the turn of the last century come alive for readers.” — Francesca Lia Block, author of The Weetzie Bat series Francesca Lia Block, author of The Weetzie Bat series Francesca Lia Block, author of the Weetzie Bat series
Praise for BILLY CREEKMORE: “Billy’s voice makes the shocking history about the lives of children at the turn of the last century come alive for readers.” — Booklist (starred review)
Praise for BILLY CREEKMORE: “An absorbing and eye-opening novel.” — Publishers Weekly
Praise for BILLY CREEKMORE: “Memorable characters, completely villainous or kind, fill the pages of this picaresque novel.” — School Library Journal
This is a haunting addition to the ‘dead girl’ genre that treats the survivors’ emotions, guilt, and pain gently and with a great deal of understanding.
Praise for BILLY CREEKMORE: “Billy’s voice makes the shocking history about the lives of children at the turn of the last century come alive for readers.
Haunting natural imagery depicting Lark’s gradual transformation interweaves beautifully with Porter’s nuanced portrayal of what it’s like to be a girl navigating an often confusing, sometimes dangerous world.
Horn Book (starred review)
Praise for BILLY CREEKMORE: “Billy’s voice makes the shocking history about the lives of children at the turn of the last century come alive for readers.
Booklist (starred review)
"Haunting natural imagery depicting Lark’s gradual transformation interweaves beautifully with Porter’s nuanced portrayal of what it’s like to be a girl navigating an often confusing, sometimes dangerous world. "
Gr 8 Up—Lark Austin is only 16 when she is kidnapped, raped, and murdered. Her former best friend, Eve; her former babysitting charge, Nyetta; and Lark herself take turns telling this poignant story. Lark gets trapped in limbo, becoming a part of the tree where, her arms tied behind her, she was left to die. She begins to communicate with Nyetta, begging for her help in order to be set free. Eve is still recovering from being molested by her swim coach, which has caused her to withdraw from everyone around her. Nyetta is homeschooled, living primarily with her unemotional mother, and has no one with whom to really connect. The girls are all looking for someone to hear them. Readers may initially be reminded of Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones (Little, Brown, 2002), but the story takes its own path at once. The concise narrative holds deep and honest emotions as the characters go through the stages of dealing with Lark's untimely and gruesome death. An excellent addition to YA collections.—Emily Chornomaz, Camden County Library System, Camden, NJ
After the rape and murder of a suburban 16-year-old, two girls learn to cope in a world that stubbornly insists on continuing without her.
Lark is a gymnast, diver and stellar student, until one January day she's kidnapped from her Arlington, Va., school. Her body is found naked, beaten and stabbed in the snowy woods. Over the next few months, the children and adults of Arlington recover—or fail to recover—from Lark's death. Interleaved chapters provide three points of view: Eve, who was Lark's childhood friend until a devastating experience of her own led to Eve's personality shift in middle school; Nyetta, whose parents are going through a messy divorce and who thought Lark was the best babysitter ever; and Lark herself, who recaps the rape and murder in gutwrenching ghostly interludes. Lark's ghost is haunting Nyetta in an attempt to get someone, anyone, to look directly at the damage done by the murderer. It's no easy task: This is a town where grief counselors teach girls that avoiding assault is a matter of how they dress, move and walk. It's a town where a mother doesn't take her daughter's assault seriously because there hasn't been penetrative sex. Nyetta and Eve will only be able to move past Lark's death if they face its most devastating truths.
Harrowing. (Fiction. 13 & up)
