The Unwritten Girl: The Unwritten Books
By James Bow
4/5
()
About this ebook
Rosemary Watson lives in the small town of Clarksbury, where news travels fast and gossip sticks around. Years before, her brother Theo suffered a nervous breakdown, and Rosemary, now entering junior high, is constantly teased about it. She wonders if she might go crazy like her brother, and she feels guilty for not being able to save him. She tries to hide in books, but even there she’s uneasy: she can’t stand to see characters suffer. She’s happiest in the cool world of fact and figures.
Rosemary and Peter - the new kid in school with issues of his own - are thrown together, and soon find themselves on a life-or-death quest to rescue Rosemary’s brother, who has lost himself in a book. With the help of Peter and her guide, faerie shape-shifter Puck, Rosemary must face the storybook perils of the Land of Fiction and learn to open her heart, before it is too late.
James Bow
James Bow is the author of more than 75 educational books for kids. He lives with his wife, two kids, two cats, and dog in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. He receives training on the safe use of chemicals where he works.
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Reviews for The Unwritten Girl
7 ratings1 review
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A young girl named Rosemary must face the perils of fiction in order to save her brother's life.I initially agreed to review this book because the synopsis reminded me of the sort of Canadian children's lit I loved when I was little. I got a real Carol Matas vibe from the descriptions, and I was all over her books when I was nine and ten. I'm pretty sure I'd have loved this book at that age, too. I'm not sure that it has as much crossover appeal for adults who read children's lit, but kids are going to get a real kick out of this.At least, kids who read will. Rosemary comes up against a number of different challenges as she travels through the Land of Fiction, all of which have firm roots in genre traditions. She faces off against a set of shapes from a children's picture book, a knight from a fairy tale, a haunted house, a train of mystery... you get the picture. Young readers who're already familiar with these sorts of stories should have a lot of fun disecting them and trying to guess which book each reference comes from. Teachers, too, may find that they can use THE UNWRITTEN GIRL as part of a unit on different types of stories.I also really liked Rosemary's family. Her parents are great, and her little sister's brief appearances are just adorable. I appreciated how Bow dealt with some darker themes, too; Rosemary and her friend Peter come up against issues like mental illness, parental death and sacrifice, even as they hobnob with dancing squares and child detectives.On the down side, I did feel like Bow could've gone deeper in some areas. I wasn't particularly concerned about Rosemary's brother, for example, as we saw so little of him. We know that he's had some emotional problems in the past and that his family worries about him, but we don't spend enough time with him to form any sort of a connection to him. It also would've been nice to see a little more of the budding friendship between Rosemary and Peter. What we do get is very nice, but I think there was room for a bit more.Overall, though, this was a quick, enjoyable read that I'd recommend to young readers. (It's marketed as YA, but I got more of a middle grade feel from it). This would be a great option for kids who aren't quite old enough for Jasper Fforde. And to top it all off, it's likely to scare the younger set into finishing every book they start.(Review copy provided by the author. A slightly different version of this review originally appeared on my blog, Stella Matutina).
Book preview
The Unwritten Girl - James Bow
THE UNWRITTEN GIRL
THE
UNWRITTEN GIRL
James Bow
Copyright © James Bow, 2006
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of
Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.
Editor: Barry Jowett
Copy-Editor: Andrea Waters
Design: Andrew Roberts
Printer: Webcom
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Bow, James, 1972-
The unwritten girl / James Bow.
ISBN-10: 1-55002-604-6
ISBN-13: 978-1-55002-604-7
I. Title.
PS8603.O973U97 2006 jC813'.6 C2006-900522-2
1 2 3 4 5 10 09 08 07 06
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for
our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada
through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and The Association for the Export
of Canadian Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax
Credit program, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.
Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author
and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in
subsequent editions.
J. Kirk Howard, President
Printed and bound in Canada.
Printed on recycled paper.
www.dundurn.com
THE UNWRITTEN GIRL
DEDICATION
You know who you are.
PROLOGUE
Rosemary read.
***
Marjorie gasped. What is this place?
She stood, with her brother, John, and her new friend Andrew, at the base of the tallest, largest building they had ever seen. Chrome jaguars guarded the steps, frozen in mid-leap. The other buildings seemed to crowd together, pushing them up the stairs. A thousand Zeppelins patrolled the sky.
Is this where the people went?
asked Marjorie.
Yes,
said the Sentinel. "
That’s comforting, deadpanned Andrew.
I think we should go now."
Perhaps there was some disaster,
said John. "I wonder what happened here; it’s like the Marie Celeste!"
Do you wish to see the people?
The Sentinel, moving stiffly on stone joints, stepped past them and pushed open the doors.
That walking statue is just so creepy,
said Andrew. He put his hand on Marjorie’s shoulder. Let’s get out of here!
No.
Marjorie pushed her horn-rimmed glasses further up on her nose. I want to see.
The Sentinel ushered them forward.
They found themselves in a vast, dark cathedral. Huge marble slabs stood suspended from the ceiling, row upon row, seven feet wide and tall, and two feet thick. Some swung almost imperceptibly, as if something inside them stirred.
The rhythmic heartbeat of the city hammered off the walls, breaking their thoughts to well-ordered pieces.
But … where are all the people?
asked Marjorie. John looked up at the slabs. His face went white. Marjorie …
The doors slammed behind them.
***
Rosemary winced. She turned the page.
***
Each slab held the impression of a person: here an old man with wide staring eyes, there a young woman, a child; each as different as people are from one another.
Frightened but curious, Marjorie led the way onto a moving sidewalk towards a second set of giant doors. The Sentinel pressed Andrew and John to follow her. Ours is a powerful civilization,
he said. We have built many wonders. But civilizations grow old, and old civilizations disappear. Knowing this, the people of this planet built the great Machine. The Machine was the pinnacle of our technology, capable of answering any question put to it and performing any action asked of it. We told it our fears and we asked it to preserve us so that our civilization would never die.
But I don’t understand,
said Andrew. Where are all the people?
The Machine did as the people instructed,
said the Sentinel. It automated all the processes and turned all the people into stone.
The second set of doors swung open as they approached, and the heartbeat intensified. At the end of a long hall sat the Machine.
***
Rosemary swallowed hard. She flipped ahead.
***
Metal claws snaked down from the ceiling and grabbed their wrists and ankles.
The Sentinel spread its arms as if puzzled. Why do you resist? The Machine preserves all on this planet. You are on this planet, so you must be preserved.
We’ve got to get out of here!
Andrew yelled.
Concentrate, Marjorie!
shouted John. Teleport now!
I can’t!
cried Marjorie. It’s the Machine! It’s breaking my thoughts!
Andrew screamed as the metal pincers wrenched him off his feet.
Marjorie, do something!
John shouted as the claws pulled him away. There was the sound of clanging metal, the hiss of steam. Her brother’s yells ended abruptly.
Andrew! John!
Marjorie screamed. She struggled vainly against the metal cables wrapping around her body, pulling her to the Machine. No!
***
Horrified, Rosemary threw the book across her room.
It landed with a thud, and Marjorie’s story slammed shut.
CHAPTER ONE
THE GIRL WHO FOLDED HERSELF
What if we could travel at the speed of thought?
— Marjorie Campbell
Rosemary Watson slapped her schoolbooks down on a study cubicle. The Outsiders has to be the most depressing book ever, she thought. She pushed her fingers beneath her thick glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose.
The school bus was late and getting later. Through the window behind her came muffled laughter and the smack of icy snowballs. Rosemary sighed and slumped in her seat.
Really, Rosemary,
said a voice behind her. You would think someone as bookish as you would appreciate good literature!
She whirled around. Benson sat twisted in his seat by the study cubicle behind her, grinning.
Go away,
she snapped.
What’s the matter, Sage?
said Benson. ’Fraid of a little snow?
Don’t you have homework?
said Rosemary.
The school librarian shushed them. They looked up and caught her grim look. Benson flashed Rosemary a cheeky grin and turned back to his books.
Rosemary turned away. Benson had been imitating what Mr. Reed, her English teacher, had said when he’d discovered she was a chapter behind in her assigned reading of The Outsiders. The class, of course, had laughed. She hadn’t bothered to explain. She’d sat silently in her seat, her face red, feeling as though a spotlight were on her.
It had been a bad day, and her classmates weren’t about to let it end, not while everyone waited for the school buses after the first snowfall of the season. So instead of standing in the schoolyard with an invisible target pinned to her forehead, she had chosen to hide in the library, taking refuge in the Encyclopedia Britannica.
The school library was half the size of the public library her father managed, but at least it had encyclopedias and the smell of paper. She felt the stress of the day seeping out amongst the hushed tomes and the facts and figures. She took a deep breath and smiled.
Then she coughed. The scent of old paper was suddenly more powerful and tinged with mildew. It clung to her like cobwebs.
Rosemary stood up and looked around. The smell seemed to be coming from one of the fiction aisles. She slipped past racks of battered paperbacks and stepped into the stacks.
A burnt-out light cast the aisle in shadow, and the shelves towered over her like a hedge maze. A girl stood where the shelves met the wall. She was flipping through a book. There was something odd about her.
Rosemary pushed her glasses further up on her nose for a better look.
The girl looked a lot like Rosemary. She was about the same age, wore glasses, and had shoulder-length brown hair. She wore a school uniform, though, and that was what made her look odd. Rosemary’s school didn’t have uniforms, and more than that, the cut of the girl’s clothes was out of date. Her glasses were horn-rimmed instead of round. It was as though she had stepped out of the 1950s, or Rosemary had stepped in.
The girl stopped paging, then turned and looked at Rosemary. Their eyes locked. The girl’s eyes were not friendly.
Who —
Rosemary stammered. What’s wrong?
The girl turned towards Rosemary and disappeared.
Rosemary jumped back. The girl had not faded into nothingness, as though she were a ghost. A ghost Rosemary could handle, maybe. Instead, she had folded out of existence, growing thinner as she turned until she was a line and then nothing at all, as though she were a piece of paper. Rosemary goggled at the empty space, and she swore it was looking back at her.
The smell of dust was so intense, Rosemary thought her throat would close. She choked.
A hand fell on her shoulder. Rosemary gasped and whirled around.
Behind her was a tall boy with a flop of light brown hair, a lot of freckles, and eyes that looked friendly, or maybe sad. He smiled at her. Hey!
She struggled a moment to place him, then remembered him: the new kid in English class, off to one side, neither perched near the front of the class nor hiding in the back. When the rest of the class had laughed at her, he hadn’t joined in. You’re ...
she began.
The boy grinned ruefully and recited, Peter. Peter McAllister, the new kid. From Toronto. The school buses are here.
He slung his backpack over his shoulder. Benson was already checking his books out.
She looked back at the aisle. The sense of being watched by empty space returned. She tried to steady her breath.
What’s wrong?
said Peter. You see something?
She took a step back and turned away. It’s nothing,
she said. It’s nothing, she thought. Don’t act crazy. Leaving Peter behind, she grabbed up her backpack and her winter coat and ran for the door.
The blast of cold air blanched Rosemary’s cheeks, but that was not why she staggered to a stop outside the entrance to Clarksbury Junior High. Across the yard, she could hear the shouts of the children heading towards the school buses, but around her it was too quiet. She could hear the whistle of the wind. The low walls nearby seemed to be giggling.
She judged the distance between herself and the school buses, calculated how long it would take for her to run, then nixed that idea. Never let them see you run.
The door swung open, and Peter stepped out with Benson. Peter gave her a smile as he passed. Rosemary shouldered her backpack, pushed her glasses further up on her nose, focused on the nearest school bus, and strode forward.
For several steps, nothing happened. Then, as she got out into the open, somebody shouted, Get her!
Kids leapt out of cover, and the air became alive with snowballs. They caught Peter as well as Rosemary. He laughed and scooped up snowballs of his own, returning fire. Then Rosemary yelled as an incoming shot caught her on the ear and sent her glasses flying.
She waved her hands at the blurry white onslaught. Stop! Stop, you idiots! I’ve lost my glasses!
The volley stopped. Rosemary clawed snow from her eyes and sank to her knees to paw at the ground. There were chuckles from the crowd. Peter dropped the snowball he was holding. Hey, are you okay?
Rosemary couldn’t stop her angry, rasping breaths. She would not cry. Just help me look!
Looking for these?
A shape pressed forward and picked up something off the