"...explore how painting, writing, and building things with your hands
can be the outlet that helps a person get through the hell that is high
school." -- Quill & Quire
The kids at school call her rag girl because she hides under layers of
oversized clothing, but she calls herself Ophelia. She hardly speaks to
anyone -- until one day a visiting author comes to give a talk in the
school library. The writer speaks about what it means to create art, and
at the end of her talk, she thanks Ophelia for asking the first question
by giving her a blue notebook with her address on it.
Ophelia starts to write to the author in the notebook -- letters that
become a kind of lifeline. The idea that someone, somewhere, might care,
is enough for her to keep writing, an escape from her real life. By day
she goes to school and works at the dollar store before returning home
to her mother, a former addict who once had to put her daughter in care.
At night she creates graffiti around town, leaving little broken hearts
as her tag.
One night she finds an abandoned building that she decides to use as her
workshop, where she can make larger-than-life art. When she finds that a
classmate, an overweight boy named Ulysses, is also using the space to
repair an old van, the two form an uneasy truce, with a chalk line drawn
down the middle to mark their separate territories. As time passes,
Ophelia and Ulysses forge a fraught but growing friendship, but their
cocooned existence cannot last forever. One night, intruders invade
their sanctuary, and their shared bond and individual strength are
sorely tested.
Key Text Features
illustrations
doodles
sketches
photographs
Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language
Arts:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.6.3
Describe how a particular story's or drama's plot unfolds in a series of
episodes as well as how the characters respond or change as the plot
moves toward a resolution.
