Have you ever driven your parents crazy with your whining, especially over summer vacation? That is exactly what eleven-year-old Megan is doing to her parents during their summer break in Vermont. Megan’s parents are both artists, and between nine a.m. and noon, Megan is supposed to be engaged in “creative pursuits,” which means art or writing, and no cell phone, no Internet, no television: you get the picture. Poor Megan: she starts to doodle, and then she rips it up. She’s bored. So her mother, one of those “back to nature” types, suggests that Megan go on a hike. Only problem is: Megan gets lost, and she’s got her innocent little dog Arp [not Arf, it’s Arp] with her. Megan actually managed to get lost on the Appalachian trail, too, which stretches on for miles and miles and miles. During my favorite part, she keeps fantasizing about Oreo cookies which are supposedly in a bag hanging from a nail in one of the trail shelters. Only, there’s an animal much larger than Megan that wants those Oreos, too. Can Nature Girl make it on her own? Nature Girl by Jane Kelley.
Nature Girl by Jane Kelley. 236 p. Random House, 2010. Booktalk to elementary [3rd-5th] and middle school.
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