The Girl is Murder
Haines, Kathryn Miller, 2011.
The Girl is Murder.
New York: Roaring Brook Press.
342 pages, hardcover.
$16.99
ISBN 9781596436091.
Rating: 5.0/5.0 stars
Plot Summary
The Girl is Murder opens with Iris preparing for her first day of public school, now that her dad has lost a leg and been sent home from the Navy. He has started his own private detective business, which takes up the majority of his time. Iris’s mom had died suddenly so she and her dad had to move from her prep school neighborhood in Manhattan to Brooklyn. Her new landlady is a grandmother figure, providing kindness and regular meals and attention for Iris.
In her new school, Iris discovers the vast differences when she is a victim of theft on her first day and tries to befriend a gang member. Later, when a classmate goes missing, Iris decides to help her private eye dad solve the mystery. Along the way, Iris makes a few new friends like Pearl and Suze and begins to see a few old friends in a different light.
Critical Evaluation
Much like what Stockett did in The Help, Haines writes without resorting to the use of colloquialisms to represent different cultures and social classes. Instead, she strictly uses language in the dictionary. It comes across incredibly real for the time period, and real for the characters saying it.
Haines has clearly done her homework, in that her details are believable yet not overly done. Iris is not what one would expect for a 1940’s proper young lady. Haines creates a lot of tension between Iris and her father. She infuriates and worries him when she presumes she doesn’t have a curfew because he never said she did. Taking advantage of his lack of real father skills, she plays right up to the edge of those boundaries as typical teens do. It is refreshing to see the similarities to today’s teens even though it is 70 years later. It will help the readers to see that as well – as unique as every generation thinks they are, in so many ways they are still like those who were teens before them.
Reader’s Annotation
It's 1942 in New York City and Iris has not only lost her mom recently, but her father came back from the Navy having lost a leg and is trying to revive his private eye business. With all of the other adjustments she has to make, Iris thinks that she should be able to assist her dad with his PI work, especially when one of her classmates goes missing.
Information About the Author
Kathryn Miller Haines is an actress, mystery writer and award-winning playwright. She loves the 1940’s; inspired by her mother who raised her on films from that era. She was raised in Texas, received her BA in English and Theater from Trinity University and her MFA from the University of Pittsburgh.
With her shiny new MFA, she expected to make the transition easily to being a published author. What she found was that she never really learned how to write a solid plot, so she decided to start reading mysteries because they were so dependent on clear, concise plots that it seemed natural that her writing would improve. Out of this, and having joined a couple of critique groups, her new Rosie Winter adult mystery series was born. Moral of the story – to be a better writer, one must “produce regularly, read constantly, and absorb the valuable feedback of other writers” (Haines, 2011).
As a new YA writer, Haines found it liberating to allow her main character to experience the world instead of her bogging down the writing with too much of what she calls an “information dump” on any particular detail (Amazon, 2011). The Girl is Murder is Kathryn’s first in a new YA mystery series that will be published by Roaring Brook Press. She lives in western Pennsylvania with her husband, son and their two dogs.
(Amazon, 2011), (Haines, 2011) and (Haines, 2011, jacket).Genre
Fiction: Mystery & Suspense – historical mystery
Read-Alikes
Maddapple – Christina Meldrum
Now You See Her – Jacquelyn Mitchard
Shelter – Harlan Coben
Curriculum Ties
Fascinating if one were doing a study on the typical teen girl in different decades. It would fit into the 1940’s and an atypical teen – also for a pop culture study of the 1940’s.
Booktalking Ideas
1) capture scene where Iris figures out how to get her roll of film into photos and her new friendship with Pearl that came out of it
2) Iris at the Savoy, with music, dancing, getting caught up and falling for Benny and their special moment
Book Trailer Links
Book Trailer by Reader
Reading Level/Interest Age
Ages 12 and up / YA
Challenge Issues
deception, teen behaviors: lying, sneaking out, breaking rules, getting into trouble, disappearance, theft, gangs, drinking, bi-racial kissing
First, I would share some of the recommendations used as part of the selection process, including reviews from resources as noted below. Next, I would point out the value in allowing these types of materials to be optional reading as teens grow ever closer to adulthood and making their own decisions. Finally, following our school district’s policy #KEC, after explaining that our school district’s philosophy is that no parent or group of parents has the right to determine the reading matter for children other than their own, I would refer the parent or community member to the building principal, so that he/she can file a written complaint to begin the process of review.
Awards
N/A
Why Title Included & Selection Tools
I have found over the years that there has been much too much history written from the perspective of men with lead male characters, so I always seek out books with historical connections whose main characters are women or girls. What makes this even more exciting, and a lot of fun to read, is that it is set in the 1940’s and it offers a very unlikely image. Instead of the good-girl with fake pearls and cashmere sweater, always doing what she is supposed to, Iris is anything but that, and why I really love this book.
School Library Journal, Publisher's Weekly, Booklist, Kirkus Reviews
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