Wild Song

Interest age 13+, Reading age 3rd grade. Living in a creaking castle on a remote, windswept island off Scotland, Anna has never known anyone other than her father, his assistant and their two servants. She is kept away from books, pictures and other children by her father, a mathematical genius, who is slowly losing his mind. Then one wild stormy day a boy washes up on the shore, a boy who will change her whole world and make her question everything she has ever believed in. With her eyes opened to life outside of the island Anna soon realises that someone close to her is determined to destroy what is left of her father’s fragile sanity. Determined to protect him Anna faces her fears and, with the help of her new-found friend, breaks free from her isolation.

This atmospheric short story inspired by Shakespeare’s The Tempest will hook readers from the first rain-drenched paragraph. The wild storms and the isolation of the island are images of Anna’s passions and her pains, much as The Tempest uses an island as a literal image of banishment, and a magical storm as the manifestation of a magician’s anger and desire for revenge.

This terrifically taut and short novel is targeted for reluctant/struggling readers or kids with dyslexia. The interest level is aged 13 and up, while it is at a 3rd grade reading level.

Kirkus Reviews (03/15/2013):
Anna lives on a rocky island off the coast of Scotland, and that is all she knows. Anna knows no one but her father, her father's assistant, Max, and Biddy and Jasper, the cook and handyman. Her father, who spends his time in his study working out mathematical formulas, has kept most knowledge of the outside world from her, although she studies mathematics, and someone (she thinks it is Max) leaves her forbidden books to read. Embodying the trope of a stranger washed up on the shores of an isolated place, a boy named Rob is discovered one day, broken and nearly drowned, by Max. Anna is kept from Rob, too, but she is stirred by his presence and wants to know more--about everything. Written in the simple language of this high-interest, low-vocabulary series, there is little nuance or subtlety in the storytelling. Stark images of the waters, the sounds of the islands and Anna's longing to learn lead readers through to an end--or possibly a new start. The lack of closure is irritating, but the romance of the tale even in this abbreviated form is compelling.