



Wildlife
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3.7 • 7 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
"In the holidays before the dreaded term at Crowthorne Grammar's outdoor education camp two things out of the ordinary happened.
A picture of me was plastered all over a twenty-metre billboard.
And I kissed Ben Capaldi."
Boarding for a term in the wilderness, sixteen-year-old Sibylla expects the gruesome outdoor education program - but friendship complications, and love that goes wrong? They're extra-curricula.
Enter Lou from Six Impossible Things - the reluctant new girl for this term in the great outdoors. Fragile behind an implacable mask, she is grieving a death that occurred almost a year ago. Despite herself, Lou becomes intrigued by the unfolding drama between her housemates Sibylla and Holly, and has to decide whether to end her self-imposed detachment and join the fray.
And as Sibylla confronts a tangle of betrayal, she needs to renegotiate everything she thought she knew about surviving in the wild.
A story about first love, friendship and NOT fitting in.
Winner of the Children's Book Council of Australia Award for Older Readers 2014
Shortlisted for Queensland Literary Awards' Young Adult Book Award 2013, NSW Premier's Literary Awards' Ethel Turner Prize 2014 and VIC Premier's Literary Awards' Prize for Writing for Young Adults 2014
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In her first novel published in the U.S., Australian writer Wood eloquently traces the emotional growth of two girls during their high school's required nine-week term of outdoor education. With a new look and new fame due to a recent professional modeling gig, 16-year-old Sib has just had her first kiss, with handsome athlete Ben Capaldio. Meanwhile, new student Lou is bereft after the death of her boyfriend, but she vows to hide her grief while reluctantly preparing to leave home for camp. The two girls are strangers when they become cabinmates, but Lou is drawn into Sib's personal dramas and complicated relationships with three peers: Ben, her new boyfriend; Michael, her oldest friend; and Holly, her manipulative best friend, who has a cruel streak. Sib's and Lou's alternating narratives intimately express their respective losses of innocence and their tenuous attempts to chart new territories in rugged, unfamiliar surroundings. Their voices reverberate with honesty, vulnerability, and deep emotions and will leave a lasting impression on readers. Ages 15 up.