Wolf Hollow

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2016

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Chapter 9

Chapters 10-18

Chapters 19-27

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Prologue-Chapter 9Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue Summary

The novel begins in the autumn of 1943, in the middle of the Second World War, when a “dark-hearted girl” moves to Annabelle McBride’s rural Pennsylvania community and changes everything (1). Annabelle, who is not yet 12, knows that she cannot avoid participating in the events that arise.

Chapter 1 Summary

Life in the Pennsylvania hills, where Annabelle lives on a farm with her family, is peaceful until Betty Glengarry moves to the area. Fourteen-year-old Betty’s parents sent her to the countryside to live with her grandparents because she’s “incorrigible” (5). Betty throws spitballs in Annabelle’s hair and threatens her. Betty intimidates the whole school, and Annabelle senses that she is a malign force. Annabelle asks her grandfather how Wolf Hollow, a place in the hills, got its name. He replies that the community used to dig pits there for catching wolves. He maintains that wolves are wild animals that could never be tame enough to live in harmony with humans.

Chapter 2 Summary

Betty, who is waiting for Annabelle by Wolf Hollow, charges her with having “a rich girl name” and demands that she should bring her one of her possessions (14). She threatens that if Annabelle does not bring her anything, she will beat her and her younger brothers with a stick. Annabelle determines that Betty will beat her first, as she is the eldest, and that she can withstand the attack. She decides that Betty is hers to “disarm […] on her own” (20).

Chapter 3 Summary

In the years following the Great Depression, vagabonds and soldiers shell-shocked from their experiences in the First World War, cross Annabelle’s parents’ farm. One of the latter, Toby, is a gentle hill-walking loner who lives in a smokehouse in the woods. He accepts the gifts of meals and a camera from the McBrides. Annabelle charts the beginning of her friendship with Toby as a catalyst for “trouble” that will envelop the family as the novel progresses (29).

Chapter 4 Summary

Although Toby is not friendly in the conventional sense, he performs such good deeds as carrying Annabelle home when she has a sprained ankle and assisting Annabelle’s father, John, with the pumpkin harvest. Betty sneers at the penny Annabelle offers her and proceeds to beat her with a stick. She tells Annabelle that if she does not give her more money, she will beat Annabelle’s smallest brother, James.

Chapter 5 Summary

Annabelle is startled when Toby reproduces the penny Betty stole from her. She wonders how Toby knew about this incident and whether he has been watching her. In return, Toby hands Annabelle a spool of film that she will send off to be developed. The spool turns out to contain “another piece of trouble […] waiting for someone to find it” (42). Annabelle protects her brothers from Betty by insisting on accompanying them to school. At school, she notices that Betty has begun to flirt with Andy Woodberry, a hefty farm boy whom everyone is afraid of.

Chapter 6 Summary

For a while, Betty is distracted by Andy Woodberry and leaves Annabelle alone. However, one day on her way to school, Annabelle finds Betty showing Annabelle’s younger brothers a quail. Annabelle observes that her brothers are in awe of Betty. Betty dismisses the brothers, telling them to go to school, and she crushes the quail to death before Annabelle’s eyes. Annabelle is devastated. Then Toby shows up, “snarling like a farm dog” and tells Betty that she will be sorry if she ever bothers Annabelle again (52). After the encounter, Betty lies back in the undergrowth on a plant (she does not recognize it as poison ivy) and is satisfied that she has met her match in Toby.

Later, when Annabelle’s mother reports that Betty is suffering from a severe case of Poison Ivy, she insists that Annabelle should help her dig up jewelweed to make a cure. In Betty’s sickroom, Annabelle notices a photograph of Betty’s parents. Betty says that her father is “gone” but does not report the circumstances of his absence (58).

Chapter 7 Summary

When Betty has recovered enough to return to school, she seems distracted with Andy and leaves Annabelle alone. At recess, Annabelle and her delicate classmate, Ruth, go and talk to Mr. Ansel, a kindly German farmer. Then, a rock that falls from above catches Ruth “square in the eye” and leaves her bleeding (65). Annabelle’s father collects her from school and asks for a blow-by-blow account of what happened.

Chapter 8 Summary

When the incident causes Ruth to lose her sight, Annabelle is devastated. Annabelle’s mother, Sarah, judges that the rock was not aimed at Ruth, but at Mr. Ansel because he is German. Sarah tells Annabelle that, as a German, Mr. Ansel has become the target of the community’s frustrations about the war.

When Annabelle tells Betty that she is going to ignore her, Betty punishes Annabelle by setting up a wire trap for Annabelle’s younger brother, James. After James trips and hurts himself, Annabelle spots Betty lurking on the scene. When Annabelle tells her father about Betty’s bullying, he promises to take care of it as long as Annabelle is honest with her parents when she next has a problem. Annabelle agrees, unaware of “how complicated things would become” (81).

Chapter 9 Summary

Annabelle visits Ruth’s sickbed, where she learns that Ruth will be moving out of town. Ruth insists that the wound was intentional, as she saw someone moving on the hillside above her. That is the last time Annabelle sees Ruth.

Annabelle and her parents visit the Glengarrys. Annabelle’s parents confront the Glengarrys about Betty’s bullying. However, Betty insists that Toby was on the hillside at the time of Ruth’s injury. The Glengarrys believe that Toby is a “wild man” and the likely perpetrator of an attack aimed at Mr. Ansel (89).

Annabelle’s father visits Toby and reports back that the latter wishes to speak with Annabelle. Toby also makes the apparently nonsensical comment that “they made scratches on the Turtle Stone” (96). The Turtle Stone is a clearing used for ceremonies by the Indians who lived in the Pennsylvania hills before the White settlers arrived there.

Prologue-Chapter 9 Analysis

The first third of the novel sows the seeds of change in Annabelle’s simple, rural life. From the outset, Wolk writes in first person past tense to foreshadow the challenging events that will occur in the ensuing chapters. Wolk sets out Annabelle’s twelfth birthday as a coming-of-age event where her life changes irrevocably, and she learns that “what I said and what I did mattered” (2).

The arrival of “incorrigible” Betty Glengarry to the community is the catalyst for change in Annabelle’s life, as journeys to school become poisoned with bullying and violent threats (5). Betty crushes a quail in her hand for sport, sets up a tripwire for Annabelle’s little brother, James, and fires a stone into Ruth’s eye. However, Betty is not the source of bad-will and mistrust in Annabelle’s rural farming community; rather, she works with the existing divisions in a society that is at war. For example, Annabelle’s mother, Sarah, assumes that the rock thrown at Ruth was intended for Mr. Ansel, a man of German origin, because “a lot of people around here are angry with the Germans […] since the last big war but especially now that we’re in another one” (71). Similarly, Betty preys on the outsider status of Toby, a shell-shocked First-World-War veteran, when she claims that she saw him on the hillside at the time of Ruth’s injury. Some in the community, including Annabelle’s Aunt Lily, who is a religious ideologue, are taken in by Betty’s fair look of innocence and are inclined to believe her over those with outsider status, like Toby. However, guided through Annabelle’s keen observations and sense of justice, the reader can see the truth beyond Betty’s lies.

The first third of the novel also brings Annabelle’s post-Depression farming community sharply into focus. Although she is very young, Annabelle is aware of poverty and hardship. She knows that some of the kids in her school are inadequately washed and outfitted, and that many of them consider school as a warm resting place. She knows that despite attending an under-funded schoolhouse where she has to share a desk, and living “cheek by jowl” in a farmhouse with three generations of her family, she is relatively rich and privileged (14). This awareness allows her to have compassion towards others with less resources and is the foundation for her friendship with Toby.

Both at home, and at school, people in Annabelle’s world are less segregated by age than they generally would be nowadays. Annabelle is therefore not defined by her age and can move more freely between the worlds of children and adults than today’s average 11-year-old. Arguably, this is what gives her an immense sense of responsibility towards her community and the people in it.

Already, Wolk is developing the theme of responsibility and coming-of-age, as Annabelle feels overwhelmed to the point of tears when she must lie to her mother. She is discovering that morality is not always black and white—a mental leap that distinguishes a child’s mind from an adult’s. Annabelle recognizes, and attempts to thwart, this growth when she considers whether she is too young to visit Ruth. This theme will develop further when Annabelle learns about Toby’s wartime experiences that led to his “shell-shock,” which is an antiquated term for PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder.