Wolf Hollow is a young adult novel written by Lauren Wolk, published by Dutton Children's Books in 2016.
It is set in rural western Pennsylvania during the autumn of 1943 and describes how the protagonist, Annabelle "learned how to lie" and "that what I said and what I did mattered" in relation to two interlopers in her life: the bully Betty Glengarry, and the mysterious drifter Toby.
Eleven-year-old Annabelle lives with her parents, grandparents, Aunt Lily, and two little brothers in the small town of Wolf Hollow, Pennsylvania.
A quiet World War I veteran named Toby lives in an abandoned smokehouse nearby.
Annabelle’s mother is sympathetic to the man, who always carries three guns and seems troubled but harmless.
One day, a 14-year-old bully named Betty Glengarry moves to Wolf Hollow to stay with her grandparents.
After Betty heals and returns to school, she starts spending time with a boy named Andy.
One day during a break from class, Annabelle chats with Mr. Ansel when he drives by with his cart.
She further mistrusts Betty when Annabelle and her brothers find a sharp wire strung across the path they take home from school.
Toby saw Betty throw it, but he hadn’t quite managed to catch the crime on camera.
In addition, Wolk stated she was inspired by contemporary events, as she "hoped to create through Betty a microcosm of what was happening in the war.
"[1] In 2017, the American Library Association named Wolf Hollow to its list of Newbery Honor winners, alongside Ashley Bryan's Freedom Over Me and Adam Gidwitz's The Inquisitor's Tale.