Middle Grade with Mom: The Lost Girl [Family Reads]

The Lost Girl by Anne Ursu

When you’re an identical twin, your story always starts with someone else. For Iris, that means her story starts with Lark. Iris has always been the grounded, capable, and rational one; Lark has been inventive, dreamy, and brilliant—and from their first moments in the world together, they’ve never left each other’s side. Everyone around them realized early on what the two sisters already knew: they had better outcomes when they were together.

When fifth grade arrives, however, it is decided that Iris and Lark should be split into different classrooms, and something breaks in them both. Iris is no longer so confident; Lark retreats into herself as she deals with challenges at school. And at the same time, something strange is happening in the city around them, things both great and small going missing without a trace. As Iris begins to understand that anything can be lost in the blink of an eye, she decides it’s up to her to find a way to keep her sister safe.

Our Discussion 💬

This month, Mom and I didn’t have any particular title we wanted to read for this feature. I had just checked out a stack of middle grade books so I suggested Mom pick one. She chose The Lost Girl. I read a lot of middle grade; Mom doesn’t, so I thought this would make for a good discussion.

And it did! We started by discussing our overall impression. We both found the storyline departed from our expectations. While we expected a story about sisters, we didn’t expect it to focus primarily on Iris and her perspective. However, in retrospect, the jacket copy does seem to imply that perspective. Mom picked up more on the relationship between the sisters while I was drawn to their relationships at school and with their peers. We attributed this to Mom’s experience as a parent and my experience as a librarian/instructor. The magical element of the story also pulled it in a direction we didn’t anticipate. We’ll address each of these topics in depth below.

[No, they didn’t have ESP.]

Still, when Iris was small and would wake up terrified from one of her nightmares, Lark would climb up from the bottom bunk and crawl into bed with her. Still, when some ugly arrow of the world pierced Lark’s heart, Iris’s hand went to her own chest and rubbed the sore spot.

People did not have words for these things, so they used the wrong words, too-bright lights that made the truths look start and wrong.

The Lost Girl, pg. 61

Sister Dynamics

Mom noted the dynamic between Iris and Lark is common to sisters close in age, let alone twins. She has two sisters and two daughters (Ash and myself). She grew up in a neighborhood full of sisters and raised Ash and I in a similar neighborhood. The dynamic of one sister standing out for a time while the other one stays in the background is realistic to Mom’s experience. You might see this dynamic reflected in other dualities: one ‘pretty’ sister and one ‘plain, one ‘sporty and one ‘academic.

We discussed how much of this might be deliberate, with sisters wanting to set themselves apart (or parents pushing them to) or if it’s more of an organic occurrence. With twins (as we see with Iris and Lark), this dynamic can be more challenging. They’re identical but they’re not the same and getting past what others see about them can be painful.

In The Lost Girl, Iris thinks Lark can’t do anything without her. Lark lets Iris behave this way because she doesn’t mind, or is used to it, or it’s always been that way, etc. Iris speaks for Lark and seems to determine what Lark can tolerate. Iris’ growth regarding this dynamic is the core of the story. She protects her sister, but who needs who more? Iris seems to have been protecting or hiding herself by identifying solely as Lark’s protector. As the story progresses, the reader’s impression of Iris also evolves. She’s not an unreliable narrator, but she learns more about herself as the reader does.

Societal Dynamics

We had a lot less to say about this point, but I wanted to make a couple notes because this was the most interesting aspect of the story to me. Both Iris and Lark don’t fit in, but in different ways. Iris is bold and brash and a little bossy while Lark is sensitive and quiet and wildly imaginative. Mom made an astute observation. For their entire life, Iris and Lark haven’t had to worry about fitting in with peers because they just had to fit with each other. Being abruptly separated forces them to confront how they relate with other kids their age. Young readers who identify with either Iris or Lark may find this story gives them lots to think about.

Fantasy Elements

The touch of fantasy in The Lost Girl felt similar to the fantasy you see in fabulism, in that it’s heavily metaphorical and serves to illuminate something else about the story. It’s not a fantasy driven story. Overall, the story is more realistic than magical (similar to, for example, A Wish in the Dark or Sweep). Mom found Mr. Green’s storyline unsettling, with how he evolves from an odd man running an odd shop to a greedy villain.

My initial impression of the magic plot was that almost distracts/feels unnecessary for Iris and Lark’s story. But if Mr. Green was a purely realistic villain, he might have been too sinister for this type of middle grade story. It wasn’t until our discussion that I had a thought – he’s the ‘gone wrong’ version of Iris, trying to pin down his sister and everything else he deems to valuable to ‘keep her safe’ and to satisfy his own pride. Once I had that thought, the character became a bit more interesting to me.

Final Thoughts 💭

Mom gives this book ★★★½ and I give it ★★★★. This book gave us so much to discuss that I cut some out to make this post a reasonable length – we also talked about the parents’ role and the library club (which introduces social justice themes) that Iris attends. The Lost Girl stands a cut above your average middle grade title, with prose that reveals the heart of the story’s characters. Now I finally understand the fuss about Ursu!

Have you read any books about twins?