Girl, Stolen

Girl, Stolen

• Genre: Fiction; young adult contemporary thriller
• Originally Published: 2010
• Reading Level/Interest: Lexile HL700L; grades 8-12
• Structure/Length: 32 chapters; approx. 192 pages; approx. 5 hours on audio
• Protagonist and Central Conflict: Sixteen-year-old Cheyenne is blind and ill with pneumonia when she is inadvertently abducted by Griffin Sawyer, a teen dropout who steals a car without realizing Cheyenne is sleeping in the backseat. When Griffin’s violent and abusive father decides to ransom Cheyenne, she realizes she must attempt to escape.
• Potential Sensitivity Issues: Drug abuse; attempted sexual assault; physical and emotional abuse; loss of parent

April Henry, Author

• Bio: Born in 1959; grew up in Medford, Oregon; at age 12, sent an original short story to writer Roald Dahl, who passed it to his editor, who recommended publication in an international children’s magazine; attended Oregon State University and earned a business degree; inspired to begin writing by the experience of reading a badly written book and becoming convinced she could do better; wrote for a variety of health care organizations while starting out as a writer of fiction; has written 27 thrillers for young adults and adults; enjoys the research process involved with crime and thriller fiction
• Other Works: The Lonely Dead (2004); The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die (2013); Count All Her Bones (2018)
• Awards: Truman Readers Award (2012); YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults; Barnes & Noble Top Teen Pick

CENTRAL THEMES connected and noted throughout this Teaching Unit:

• Turning a Disadvantage Into an Advantage
• Seeing Things From a Different Perspective
• Change Inspired by Kindness and Adversity

STUDY OBJECTIVES: In accomplishing the components of this Unit, students will:

• Gain an understanding of how a person with a disability, such as the blind protagonist, can Turn a Disadvantage Into an Advantage.
• Study paired texts and other brief resources to make connections via the text’s themes of Turning a Disadvantage Into an Advantage, Seeing Things From a Different Perspective, and Change Inspired by Kindness and Adversity.
• Analyze the effect of the novel’s shifting point of view by rewriting a scene from another character’s perspective, discussing and reflecting on the changes, and connecting them to the theme of Seeing Things From a Different Perspective.