Mary Wolf

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

At 16, Mary Wolf seems to be the only adult in her family. Her father, once an insurance executive, lost his job long ago and with it, apparently, his backbone. For two years the Wolfs have been traveling in an RV as the increasingly volatile Mr. Wolf occasionally lands and quickly loses menial jobs, supplementing his income with petty thievery and clumsy scams. Crippled by pride, he tells lies that Mrs. Wolf is all too eager to believe and that Mary's little sisters are too young to see through. Only Mary challenges him, but she cannot prevent him from driving the family into certain catastrophe. As in her dramatic psychological thriller Uncle Vampire, Grant establishes the desperation of lives ruled by nightmare, drawing the threads of her narrative ever tighter so that only extraordinary force can alter her characters' destinies. The climax is violent but not exploitative-it delivers a strongly cathartic jolt as the author expertly releases the reader from her darkly absorbing story. Ages 12-up. (Oct.)

Children's Literature - Alexandria LaFaye

This realistic tale of a family facing homelessness provides a disturbing, but accurate portrayal of the emotional and physical trauma that jobless families face. Mary Wolf is the eldest of five children in a family that's on a permanent "vacation." Touring the country in an RV, called the Wolf's Den, Mary's family steals to make a living after her father looses a lucrative job as an insurance salesman. As a young adult with more common sense than her parents, Mary tries to hold her family together by educating her younger sisters, caring for her infant brother, and trying to get her father to look beyond his injured pride to maintain a stable job. Grant deftly shows the complicated emotional relationships in a dysfunctional family. Darkly witty, fresh, and poignant, this novel gives a rare glimpse into the haunting lives of our country's homeless.

School Library Journal

Gr 6-10-Sixteen-year-old Mary Wolf's life is far from stable. When her father's business folded, he packed up the family in the RV and began a cross-country trek. As the story begins, they have been on the road for a long time, have no money left, and Mama steals from stores and neighbors and resells the merchandise at flea markets. Escaping a possible arrest, the family flees to California and comes upon a decrepit beach campsite where other destitute families live. Mary meets Rocky, a ray of hope and friendship in the form of an 18-year-old runaway. It seems as though the Wolfs may settle there, at least ``until they get back on their feet.'' But when state troopers inform them that the area must be evacuated, Mary and her father discover that the camper is in need of a new engine. He falls into a deep and desperate depression and takes the only action he can think of. And Mary has to confront him with a gun-for he has stolen a neighbor's weapon, shot her mother, and is holding her siblings hostage. Grant's story is set in the starkly realistic world of homeless families. Her gripping prose flows from Mary's first-person narrative, which reveals an adolescent who lives with the frustration of a life that has been forced upon her. The tension suspensefully builds throughout, and with each crisis, readers are drawn towards the sadly powerful climax. This novel successfully personalizes a contemporary tragedy and is a worthwhile addition to most YA collections.-Jana R. Fine, Clearwater Public Library System, FL