My Own Lightning by Lauren Wolk

My Own Lightning follows the author’s previous Newbery-honored novel, Wolf Hollow, with a more hopeful conclusion.

My Own Lightning by Lauren Wolk. Dutton, 2022, 307 pages.

Reading Level: Middle Grades, ages 10-12

Recommended for: ages 10-14

The Trauma Last Year

Annabelle McBride’s life is just now settling down to normal after the psychotic bully Betty Glengarry disturbed her family and rural community. Betty’s gone, but the memory of her aimless cruelty remains—especially what she did to Toby, the traumatized Great War veteran whom Annabelle befriended, now buried in Wolf Hollow. And someone else remains: Andy Woodberry, Betty’s accomplice in many of her mean schemes. These memories are not far from Annabelle’s mind as she cuts through the woods on her way home from school.

There’s a fierce storm brewing, and as she pauses on a hill, “suddenly the air fizzed around me, as though I’d been dipped in wasps . . . and I knew nothing at all except a sizzling pain in my head, a dreadful heat, a sharp emptiness in my chest, and a kind of ending.” The lightning strike would have been the end of her if someone hadn’t struck her in the chest to get her heart beating again. Its effect stays with her long after, sharpening her senses to the point where she can understand animals. Or is that an illusion? And does her sudden affinity with animals deaden her sympathy with people like Andy, whom she never wanted to see again, even though he’s a neighbor.

Rethinking Our Impressions

A full appreciation of Lauren Wolk’s latest novel might depend on reading the prequel, Wolf Hollow—which, as Betsy and I discussed a few years ago, has some pretty sorrowful overtones. On the other hand, My Own Lightning supplies a satisfying coda to the earlier book. Nothing can be done about Betty and Toby, but Annabelle learns she has some rethinking and reconsidering to do: “I felt torn once again, right down the middle, as if I were two girls, and I realized that I wanted more than anything else to feel like one whole person again.” Trauma tears us up, but a stable family, a solid community, and perhaps even a dose of extrasensory perception can help put us back together.

Overall Rating: 4.25

• Worldview/moral value: 3.5
• Artistic/literary value: 5

Read more about our ratings here.                 

Also at Redeemed Reader:

• Reviews: Besides Wolf Hollow, we’ve reviewed other novels by Lauren Wolk: Beyond the Bright Sea and Echo Mountain.

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