The Girl in the Well is Me: Karen Rivers

This was a kids book and an excellent introduction into stream of consciousness for young readers. Usually not taught until "The Tell Tale Heart" or "The Sound and the Fury, which are more middle- to high school reads, it was really cool to introduce it to younger readers. A little girl starts telling her story while she is stuck in a well and between her thoughts and panic we learn her story and how she got in the well. Her father went to jail for embezzling from a children's miracle organization and they are living in a trailer in a new town near the prison. Desperate to find friends, the girl goes through "initiation" into the cool group, which entailed one of them chopping off her beautiful hair and then she had to stand on a rotting board above the well and sing a song, of course the board broke and she fell in. While forced to sort through her thoughts she realizes she doesn't want to be friends with the girls any more and is stronger than before since she now knows herself.