Author: Laurie Halse Anderson
Publisher: Viking
Copyright: 2009
ISBN: 067001110X
Reading Level/Interest Age: Grade 9 and up
Genre: Issues--Disease
Reader’s Annotation: Eighteen-year-old Lia plunges back into her old habits of anorexia and cutting after learning of her best friend's death from bulimia.
Plot Summary
Best friends Lia and Cassie made a pact in eighth grade to be the skinniest girls in school. At that point Cassie had already been bulimic for over a year and Lia had started down the path toward anorexia. Now Lia and Cassie are seniors in high school. Though they’ve both been hospitalized for their conditions, neither has been able (or willing) to get healthy. In fact, Lia learns in the first chapter that Cassie has succumbed to her disease “in a motel room, alone.” On the night Cassie died she called Lia 33 times, leaving increasingly desperate messages. Lia didn’t answer because Cassie had cut off their friendship months before.
Soon Lia is seeing Cassie’s angry ghost, who urges Lia to join her in death. Lia, who’s been living in relative health with her dad, stepmom, and stepsister since her last hospitalization, accelerates her progress toward her weight goals—99.00, 95.00, 90.00. She games her weekly weigh-ins so her family won’t send her back to the hospital, and begins cutting again. She shuts out her family and psychiatrist, refusing to believe their concern for her is real or justified. The crisis that has been brewing is finally reached when Lia’s little sister walks in on her cutting herself, but even that is not enough to jolt Lia out of her wildly disordered thinking. She must reach a point of even greater extremity if she is going to decide to live.
Critical Evaluation
Wintergirls is one of the scariest books I’ve ever read, both as a ghost story and as a profile of a disturbed and deteriorating mind. Anderson has crafted a voice that is pitch-perfect and all too realistic. Lia’s narration is poetic, obsessive, and harrowing. She describes her deadly pact with Cassie this way:
“We held hands when we walked down the gingerbread path into the forest, blood dripping from our fingers. We danced with witches and kissed monsters. We turned us into wintergirls, and when she tried to leave, I pulled her back in the snow because I was afraid to be alone.”
Lia recites a mantra of self-hatred when she’s upset:
“::Stupid/ugly/stupid/bitch/stupid/fat/
stupid/baby/stupid/loser/stupid/lost::”
and often begins reflections on her past with “When I was a real girl.” The tone of her account is dark and foreboding throughout—Lia makes sure to squelch any glimmers of hope that break through the gloom.
Lia is not especially likable—she hates the people around her almost as much as she hates herself (with the exception of her eight-year-old stepsister, with whom she’s very sweet). It’s clear, though, that before she started destroying herself she was smart, talented, and loyal. Even when she’s cruel, it’s impossible not to hurt with her and hope for her.
The other characters are almost as complex. Lia’s perceptions of them are sometimes dead on, as when she notes that her stepmom thinks her daughter is “
Wintergirls is a brilliant look at a disease that’s very hard for the unaffected to understand. Through Lia, readers will be able to empathize with the struggles of people in their lives, and may even be inspired to be kinder to themselves.
Curriculum Ties: Health--eating disorders
Booktalking Ideas
Read the description of Cassie and Lia's eighth-grade pact to "be skinniest together."
Describe the circumstances of Cassie's death ("in a motel room, alone") and read the increasingly desperate messages she left on Lia's phone.
Challenge Issues: Disturbing content, possible trigger effect
In the defense file, I will include my library's selection policy, ALA's Library Bill of Rights, ALA's guidelines on free access to libraries for minors (http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/intfreedom/librarybill/interpretations/freeaccesslibraries.cfm), and ALA's strategies and tips for dealing with challenges to library materials (http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/challengeslibrarymaterials/copingwithchallenges/strategiestips/index.cfm). I will also include my library's reconsideration form, in case challenges to this book cannot be defused with "tea and sympathy." I'll put in the article from the New York Times "Well Blog" on the dangers of Wintergirls and books like it to vulnerable readers (available at http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/11/the-troubling-allure-of-eating-disorder-books/). I'll also include positive reviews from Kirkus Reviews, Booklist, and School Library Journal.
About the Author
Laurie
Halse (rhymes with "waltz") Anderson pretended she was a polar bear
when she walked to school through the snow of Syracuse, New York. As a
little girl, she would pound away at her father's old typewriter for
hours, writing newspaper columns, stories, and letters. She loved
watching her father write poetry and reading the funnies on the floor of
his office. Laurie fell in love with words when her second-grade
teacher taught her how to write haiku. Her favorite book is the
dictionary, which is a good thing because she is a terrible speller. She
tried to read every book in her school library, a heavenly place. She
loves librarians! One of her favorite books was Heidi. This led to
curiosity about foreign cultures. As a senior in high school, she was an
American Field Service exchange student to Denmark, where she lived on a
pig farm. She skipped both her prom and graduation ceremonies and had a
great time there. She can still speak Danish.
Laurie Halse Anderson never intended to be an author. At Georgetown University, she majored in foreign languages and linguistics. She hit the real world with no idea of what kind of work she wanted to do. She tried everything, including cleaning banks, milking cows and working as a stockbroker. She hated all of it. Working as a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer was a slight improvement, but she eventually quit to write books. After eight long, rejection-filled years, she has finally qualified as an overnight success.
Laurie's books for children and teenagers have attracted a lot of attention. Her first novel, Speak, was a National Book Award Finalist, a Michael L. Printz Honor book, a New York Times bestseller, and an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults. Publisher's Weekly called Speak "a stunning first novel," in which Ms. Anderson "uses keen observations and vivid imagery to pull readers into the head of an isolated teenager." Speak has been translated into sixteen foreign languages, including Chinese and Catalan. In 2005, the movie version was released. In addition to novels, Laurie writes chapter books for elementary age children and picture books for the pre-school set. She received the Margaret A. Edwards Award, given by the American Library Association for significant and lasting achievement in young adult literature, in 2009.
Laurie lives in Northern New York with her husband, Scot, and their dog, Kezzie. Scot designed and built a writing cottage for Laurie, where she writes daily. Along with writing, she enjoys gardening, running and hanging with her family.
http://www.amazon.com/Laurie-Halse-Anderson/e/B000AP5REO
Laurie Halse Anderson never intended to be an author. At Georgetown University, she majored in foreign languages and linguistics. She hit the real world with no idea of what kind of work she wanted to do. She tried everything, including cleaning banks, milking cows and working as a stockbroker. She hated all of it. Working as a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer was a slight improvement, but she eventually quit to write books. After eight long, rejection-filled years, she has finally qualified as an overnight success.
Laurie's books for children and teenagers have attracted a lot of attention. Her first novel, Speak, was a National Book Award Finalist, a Michael L. Printz Honor book, a New York Times bestseller, and an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults. Publisher's Weekly called Speak "a stunning first novel," in which Ms. Anderson "uses keen observations and vivid imagery to pull readers into the head of an isolated teenager." Speak has been translated into sixteen foreign languages, including Chinese and Catalan. In 2005, the movie version was released. In addition to novels, Laurie writes chapter books for elementary age children and picture books for the pre-school set. She received the Margaret A. Edwards Award, given by the American Library Association for significant and lasting achievement in young adult literature, in 2009.
Laurie lives in Northern New York with her husband, Scot, and their dog, Kezzie. Scot designed and built a writing cottage for Laurie, where she writes daily. Along with writing, she enjoys gardening, running and hanging with her family.
http://www.amazon.com/Laurie-Halse-Anderson/e/B000AP5REO
Why is this title included?
Laurie Halse Anderson is one of YA's most talented and popular authors. Although it's possible that Wintergirls may have a triggering effect on some readers, it may well help others recognize their own disordered eating and decide to change. It's also an important read for anyone trying to help a loved one dealing with an eating disorder.
Wintergirls is on many best-of lists, including Booklist Editors’ Choice: Books for Youth, 2009; Publishers Weekly Best Children's Books, 2009; YALSA Best Books for Young Adults, 2010; YALSA Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers, 2010; and YALSA Teens' Top Ten, 2010.