From this moment on, life is never quite the same for Tom and his seventh-grade classmate. Despite Jessica's shocking appearance and the fear she evokes in him and most of the class, Tom slowly develops a tentative friendship with Jessica that changes his life. Firegirl is a powerful book that shows readers that even the smallest of gestures can have a profound impact on someone's life.
from the back cover: Every town should have a 'card' - someone who gets talked about, someone who does mad and wonderful things, someone who makes you laugh. Bursley in the Five Towns has a 'card': Edward Henry Machin (Denry for short). Denry begins life in a poor little house where the rent is twenty-three pence a week. But before he's thirty, he's made a lot of money, and had more adventu…