Helen Frost has managed to distill only the barest essential in her writing. It is one of those rare instances when each verse, each line counts for something. The novel is very fast-paced, the suspense builds up pretty quickly – and you await in bated breath what happens next. While Wren was technically the “victim” here – I also felt deeply for Darra – whom I feel is searching for what it means to be loved and truly cared for – without the physical pain and hurt – she needed to ‘steal’ Wren’s family photo album to see and touch for herself how such loud laughter and warm taste of togetherness could be like – these are things that were ‘hidden’ from her. Click on the image to be taken to the websource. Upper Peninsula, Michigan - the setting for the fictional Camp Oakwood in the story. This would have been a traumatic incident tucked neatly in the crevices of one’s waking memory – if not for the fact that these two girls meet again at Camp Oakwood somewhere in Michigan’s beautiful Upper Peninsula – and they are confronted with each other’s versions of events, their own shades of realities, and their own painful ways of making meaning out of their nightmarish experience. The two lovely girls in the book cover: fourteen year olds Wren and Darra – are coming from wildly-different worlds – yet their lives are interwoven by a criminal act that Darra’s father has committed (and paid for in full) when the girls were only eight years old.ĭarra comes from a disadvantaged background: father lost his job, mother earns a meager income, father hits both wife and child when upset, father turns to car-stealing – not realizing that an eight year old girl (Wren) is hiding out back – waiting for her mother. And Helen Frost’s Hidden is definitely a keeper and one of the titles that I’d have to share a few words about.įinding family and friendship. So while I’ve read quite a lot, I know that I’d have to be more selective in terms of which books I shall review and feature here.

While the books are easy reading, I know that writing the reviews would prove to be more time consuming and would require much greater thought and deliberation. I’ve done quite a bit of research before borrowing (almost literally) a ton of books from the library that are in the format of novels-in-verse.

Asian Festival of Children’s Content (AFCC).

Literary Voyage Around The World Reading Challenge 2018.

#WomenReadWomen2019 (A Year Of Women Reading Women) Reading Progress.

#ReadIntl2020 (Year Of International Literature) Reading Progress.

#DecolonizeBookshelves2022 Reading Progress.#DecolonizeReading2023 Reading Progress.

Hidden by helen frost summary