The Different Girl

December 15, 2012
Four nearly identical girls living with their teachers on a tropical island have difficulty getting along with a new girl who seems different from them in this unusual and enigmatic science-fiction outing. Written entirely from the point of view of one of the island girls, Veronika, the simple prose slowly reveals who--or what--the girls might be. At first glance, the only difference appears to be hair color, but each turns out to have a different focus. They spend their days learning in their classroom from adults Robbert and Irene and taking observational walks. The girls look closely at everything they see, describing it all when they return. Robbert strives to hide the girls from any outside eyes and makes sure they don't get wet. Things go awry when Veronika discovers May washed up on the beach, apparently the survivor of a shipwreck. Once she recovers from her injuries, May rejects the four girls and flees, but when an outside danger intrudes, it's May who steps up to save them. Dahlquist trusts his audience to notice his sparse but clear clues in order to decipher the true differences between May and the four island girls, and astute readers will have little difficulty with his scenario. The author never reveals why the girls are hidden away and what their purpose might be, leaving that to readers' imaginations. Most intriguing. (Science fiction. 12 & up)

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March 1, 2013

Gr 7 Up-With The Different Girl, Dahlquist presents a cryptic vision of the future through the eyes of artificial intelligence. Life has always been the same for four teens. The girls study their island with the help of their teachers. Each day is the same: walking and talking and building upon the things they learned in the days before until it is time for the teachers to put them to sleep. But when May arrives, life begins to change at a frightening pace. The narrator, Veronika, knows only what her teachers tell her and what she is able to observe. Readers must rely heavily on imagination and inference to puzzle out the circumstances of the world beyond the island and the extreme secrecy that seems to surround the four robotic girls and their handlers. Fans of science fiction and dystopian societies will find plenty to pique their interest, but little to satisfy their questions.-Sara Saxton, Tuzzy Consortium Library, Barrow, AK

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