The Girl Who Outgrew the World

This modern feminist folktale from Stage (Getaway) hides dark themes within a deceptively whimsical exterior. Eleven-year-old Lilly Wolf has a growth spurt that won’t stop. She towers over everyone around her, and is increasingly treated as both monstrous and broken by the adults in her life. When she overhears her doctors planning to “cure her” using dangerous radiation treatment, Lilly runs away. She seeks shelter with one of her doctors, who takes advantage of that trust and rapes her. Fleeing after the assault, Lilly travels into an increasingly strange and wondrous wilderness, seeking a haven where she can be herself. This relatively short novel doesn’t allow much room for Lilly to process her assault, leaving that thread feeling unresolved and the rape itself more like a cheap plot device than a realistic trauma. It mars an otherwise clever double metaphor for the treatment of people with disabilities and the ways girls are discouraged from taking up space. Still, the subversive fairy tale world and engaging plot will draw readers in. Agent: Claire Friedman and Stephen Barbara, InkWell Management. (May)