Review
Fifteen-year-old Holly Hogan is an abandoned child, a bad girl with a frozen heart and a nail bomb of anger in her head. After years spent living in a group home and negotiating the social services system of England, Holly is placed with a quiet, comfortable, middle-aged couple. Solace is the older, daring and confident teen that Holly becomes when she dons a blonde wig found hidden away in their house.
Fiona, her foster mom, means well but her New Age ideas just seem dumb to Holly. When her foster dad, Ray, catches her smoking in her room and forbids it; when she cannot make a friend at school; but most of all when she learns that Fiona only wants her because she can't have a child of her own, that's it - time to go.
When she puts on the blonde wig, Holly feels transformed into the kind of girl she would like to be. Hitting the road, armed only with a map, a cell...
Beyond the Book
PEN America.
Siobhan Dowd (pronounced Shivorn) was named one of the "top 100 Irish-Americans" for her global anti-censorship work with the writers' organization Dowd also co-founded the English PEN’s readers and writers program, which brings authors into underprivileged schools, prisons young offender institutions and community projects.
Her first book for young readers,
A Swift Pure Cry, was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize and the BookTrust Teenage Prize. She is also the author of
The London Eye Mystery (2007), and
Bog Child (2008).
Siobhan died on...
