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Jessica Bruder (The New York Times)

The footage was eerie: dozens of girls in 19th-century prairie dresses, escorted by state troopers toward buses that would carry them off to an unfamiliar world. More than 400 children were temporarily removed from the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado, Tex., in April 2008. Their lives, once hidden within the compound of the breakaway Mormon sect, were suddenly the stuff of national news. Courts are still untangling the disturbing allegations — were girls as young as 12 forced to marry middle-aged men? — but the questions that cut deepest, about society’s laws versus religious freedom, for example, are even harder to answer.

Fiction can offer emotional truth where other tools fail, and that’s what makes these two young adult novels — “The Chosen One,” by Carol Lynch Williams, and “Alis,” by Naomi Rich — so interesting. Both feature young women chafing against strict religious societies. Each protagonist is betrothed, against her will, to a much older man. And each book runs on the same engine of narrative tension: the heroine’s decision to gatecrash her way into mainstream society, leaving everything behind.

At their best the atmospherics of these novels recall Margaret Atwood’s powerful dystopia “The Handmaid’s Tale,” which has become a staple of high school reading lists. But they are also resonant because they magnify a leitmotif of adolescence: the struggle for self and independence.

“ ‘If I was going to kill the Prophet,’ I say, not even keeping my voice low, ‘I’d do it in Africa.’ ” That arrestingly offbeat meditation is the opening line of “The Chosen One” and our first introduction to Kyra, 13, who lives on a religious compound in the middle of a desert. Kyra feels guilty about many things: her fantasy of killing Prophet Childs and letting termites chew away the evidence; her habit of hiding in a tree behind her family’s trailer to read forbidden books like “Bridge to Terabithia”; her crush on Joshua Johnson, the blue-eyed boy who asks her for piano lessons.

But Kyra is soon faced with bigger worries. Prophet Childs declares that she must become the seventh wife of her cruel 60-year-old uncle, Apostle Hyrum. She’s horrified. Should she marry him, sacrificing her freedom and happiness for her family’s good name? Or should she escape, leaving behind 20 beloved siblings, three mothers and her gentle father?

Williams, herself a Mormon, unveils life among the Chosen (a fictitious theocracy) with spare, evocative writing and an honest sense of character that helps bridge the rift between Kyra’s world and ours. In one scene her family takes her off the compound to buy fabric for her wedding dress, and they stop for lunch at Applebee’s. Everyone gawks at them, and readers, most of us at least, are likely to be jolted by recognizing ourselves among the gawkers.

On occasion, Williams stretches plausibility. (Could Kyra’s furtive visits to a mobile library, where it stops just outside the compound, escape notice where every soul is under lock and key?) But thankfully, the nuanced ending — Kyra is free, but freedom isn’t easy — feels just right.

“Alis” is a fast-paced tale about a similar struggle, but its setting in an alternate time and place — an Olde England of sorts, with cobbled streets and horse-drawn carriages — robs emotional leverage from the plot. Alis, 14 years old, lives in a theocratic community, Freeborne, and has been ordered to marry a 40-year-old preacher. She dreams of escaping to “the city,” where her older brother is rumored to have taken refuge years ago. But both Freeborne and the city are alien to the reader, so the contrasts that made “The Chosen One” potent are absent here.

This story has other strengths, however, that make it hard to put down. Alis finally reaches the city, but it’s not the sanctuary she imagined — her brother, Joel, turns out to be the leader of a gang of petty thieves. Unprepared for the violence and tumult of their lives, Alis returns to Freeborne and her fate as a child bride. But her betrothed, Minister Galin, turns out to be a decent man, and when Alis leaves Freeborne again, it’s on her own terms, and with a suitor she chooses.

Alis and Kyra are both recognizable teenagers. But the cinematic drama of their lives, not to mention the fact that they’d both feel at home in “The Crucible,” is a means to reach a quieter truth, revealing that moment in childhood when you recognize your thoughts as your own and discover forces in the world that your parents cannot — or will not — protect you from. That moment brings freedom, but not without a cost.

Jessica Bruder teaches journalism at Columbia University and is the author of “Burning Book: A Visual History of Burning Man.”

I just don’t know if this sad and alone feeling will ever go away.
I mean, I feel like I could scream forever and not get out all the upset and afraid and sad that I have inside. But even if I screamed as big as the Grand Canyon, somehow I know these awful feelings would still be here. And it scares me.
Some nights I jerk awake, cold and shaking, and I don’t know why. Then I see Kelly’s empty bed, the moon light flowing over the neat covers. And like a bad dream I remember us getting ready to eat breakfast all over again. I almost smell the eggs cooking, almost hear Momma trying to talk us out of having Pop-Tarts. And then, like a picture that is always in my head, I can see my sister’s face, Kelly’s face, turning pale. And she’s falling, falling out of her chair, slowly to the floor, squeezing my hand tight, pulling me down to the ground with her. Then she is dead.
Papa, my grandfather, he still hurts because of Grammy’s dying four years ago. They were married years and years. Longer than Kelly and I were best friends. Will I feel this way as long as Papa has about Grammy?
Or Mrs. Comer, who lives next door to us on Adeline Street. She’s older than Papa by nearly ten years. Her husband has been dead since before I was born. And still she misses him. Will that happen to me?
Sometimes, before, when Kelly was alive, we would go over to Mrs. Comer’s house to keep her company. She’s afraid of lightning storms, and whenever there is one, and we have a lot here in Florida, she always has somebody come to her house and sit with her. I still do that now.
Last night the lightning was dancing everywhere in the distance, far out over the ocean. The sky was dark purple with thunderheads. To me there’s hardly anything more scary of more beautiful than a lightning storm. I walked slow over to Mrs. Comer’s house, pushing through the hibiscus hedge that separates our yards. The red flowers were starting to close up for the night.
I sat out on the porch for a little while, smelling the thick odor of the gardenia bushes that were planted all the way around the house, until Mrs. Comer’s whiny voice dragged me in.
“Leah,” she said, “you’re going to be struck by lightning. A stray bolt is going to find you there, swinging in that old porch swing.”
“That lightning is out by the ocean, Mrs. Comer,” I said.
“That may be,” she said through the screened window, “but storms travel fast. And lightning is sneaky. Once when I was a little girl, I heard of a man being hit by lightning when he was in Georgia and the storm was in North Carolina.”
“That’s not possible,” I said, but I went into the living room, just in case.
I pushed the windows open and propped them up with pieces of wood. The wind moved the sheer curtains toward me, like an old-timey lady spinning in her ballroom dress. Then it sucked the curtains flat onto the screen.
Mrs. Comer sat hunched in her old rocker. She was wrapped in an orange, brown and green afghan. After a moment I went through the house, unplugging every lamp, the television, the electric coffeepot, and on and on. Then I lit the kerosene lamp on top of the TV. Every once in a while thunder would rumble toward us, rolling like a big ball, and Mrs. Comer would shiver. The light from the lamp flickered, sending out a warm, soft glow.
Suddenly Mrs. Comer started remembering.
“When I was a little girl there were no cars. Horses and buggies were how we got around. Kerosene laps were how we saw at night. No electric lights. Winters were never cold, and the only thing we had to worry about were the hurricanes that swept through. And then only in September.” September was when Kelly died. Just two months before.
I settled myself on an old sofa and pulled my feet up under me. Some people, like Papa and my daddy, say that Mrs. Comer is senile. Momma says she’s just old and lonely.
“I was the prettiest woman in all this area.” I couldn’t imagine that, what with all of Mrs. Comer’s wrinkles. Was she ever really young? “Of course, there weren’t all the towns and stores and golf courses and things that we have now. Mostly there were woods and palmettos brushes and flatlands going on and on forever. And orange groves, the trees heavy with fruit and thick, green, waxy leaves. White boxes of beehives. Beautiful herds of cows.” I wondered if Mrs. Comer was all the right now or just being senile. How could anyone think herds of cows were beautiful?
“I miss all that open land. I miss all the lakes and the rivers flowing clean and pure. You know, I saw the beach on the television the other day and the water was dirty and ugly.” She tsked her disapproval. From the backyard I could hear Mrs. Comer’s crazy rooster crowing. I guess he thought it was late, what with the sky so dark.
“Yes sirree,” Mrs. Comer said. “I was the belle of the ball.” She leaned toward me, lifting her wrinkled hands from her lap, and for a moment I wondered if she might get up and whirl and dance with the curtains to prove that she really had been popular. I mean, it was possible for her to dance around without any warning.
“All of the young men wanted to be with me. My dance card was always full, but I only had eyes for Edward.” Mrs. Comer was staring at the lamp, caught in the magic of its glow.
“He was the most handsome man alive.” I felt sad, and I wasn’t quite sure why. Maybe because I had sat in this room so many times with Kelly. Maybe because of Mrs. Comer’s oldness.
“My mother didn’t want me to marry Edward because he was fourteen years older than I was.”
“Wow,” I said.
“But I defied her.” Mrs. Comer kept talking like she hadn’t heard me. She gathered the afghan close around her shoulders like she was cold, even though the air was hot and heavy. Only surges of wind from the ocean were cool. I wondered what they did back in the olden days if you did something wrong like marry a man fourteen years older than you.
“In the middle of the night Edward came to the house and called for me, soft, under my window. I was already dressed. I tiptoed down the stairs and to the front door. Never had the stairs squeaked so.” Mrs. Comer giggled. “I was so nervous. I thought I would wake the servants that Mother employed.
“Edward was waiting for me on the steps. I remember the smell of the gardenia bushes, and since that night I have loved that aroma best. He helped me up on his horse and jumped up behind me. Then we rode slowly away from the home of my youth. I didn’t go back there until a year and a half later, with our first baby girl.”
I couldn’t believe the lady who had told Momma and Daddy about Kelly and me skinny-dipping would have left her own home without her mother’s saying it was okay. My mouth dropped open. I mean, Mrs. Comer is one of the biggest snoops on Adeline Street, maybe even in all of New Smyrna Beach.
“Mother and Father welcomed me with open arms. And Edward too. They could see I was happy. More happy than I would ever be with another man.”
For a while Mrs. Comer sat quiet, staring into the light of the kerosene lamp. Great jabs of lightning lit up the windows and showed the trees in the yard darkly, swaying and bending. Thunder boomed and rolled ever closer to us.
“Then he went to war,” said Mrs. Comer. “And I thought I’d never see him again. But he came home not a scratch, except maybe he was a bit thin. It didn’t take long for me to fatten him up. Then he was gone again.” Mrs. Comer let out a sad, deep sigh.
After a little bit her face softened as if her memories were good ones, and she said, “I expect him back any minute, you know, and when he gets here you will have to run along home.”
Outside, it was quiet for a brief moment. I could hear the porch swing, squeaking back and forth.
“The storm is not anywhere near over,” I said. “And you don’t like to be alone during lightning storms.”
Mrs. Comer smiled at me. “I’m not afraid of anything when Edward is here. Not even storms.”
There was a creaking noise on the front porch, and Mrs. Comer leaped up and off the sofa. She squinted a look out the windows.
“Edward?” she said. “Edward, is that you?”
I got this scary feeling in my chest, and my heart started pounding hard.
“Finally you are back. Are you wanting to come in?” Mrs. Comer’s voice was all shaky, and it sounded, well, excited and happy. “The door’s open Edward. I’ve been waiting for you for such a long time.”
Mrs. Comer hurried to the door, stumbling over an ottoman. She was up in a flash, before I could even stand to help her. I watched openmouthed. This was the craziness that Papa and Daddy talked about. The afghan fell from around her shoulders and to the floor. Mrs. Comer left it where it landed. She flung the door wide open, and the curtains swooshed into the screens and strained to get past. A moth flew a frenzied pattern to the kerosene lamp. The rooster crowed again, and I jumped. The wind belched in a burst of air that grabbed at Mrs. Comer’s cotton dress and pulled it back into the house. The smell of the ocean swirled in.
“Edward?” Mrs. Comer said. It was a pitiful cry, sad and lonely. I went and stood beside her. She is tiny, just my height. Her hair is white really but is the darkness of the night it looked silver in the front and gold in the back because of the lamplight. I put my arm around her. The heavens were split wide purple puzzle, shadowed dark and darker. We both saw the figure pushing through the hibiscus hedge.
“Edward!” Mrs. Comer called, her hands pressing against her lips. “Come home! Come home to me.” She held her arms out suddenly to the approaching figure, waving him in with her hands.
“Mrs. Comer,” I said, “that’s just Papa coming to check on us.”
And then, as if the storm had bought me a truth, I saw Mrs. Comer as she really was: alone without her best friend. Like me without Kelly.
“Come in off the porch,” I said. “It’ll be raining soon and I don’t want you to get wet.”
“But if Edward is much later, his dinner will be cold.”
“Mrs. Comer,” I said, “Edward’s not here. He died. Remember. He died a long time ago.” Papa walked slow through the yard, stepping carefully in the dark.
“How about I make you some Postum?” I said. The sky lightened again, and I saw Mrs. Comers’ face crumple in an instant, then change back to the right-now present.
“He’s dead?” she said. I felt her straighten a tiny bit. “I know. Sometimes, though, I am lucky and I forget. Oh, how I loved that man.” She said this to herself. “And after all this time I still miss him. I have an ache in me this big.” Her hands moved to her chest. It didn’t make much sense, but somehow I know what she meant. “Edward, I love you. I’m coming to you as soon as I can,” she called, and she kissed her hands and flung them out wide. Her voice seemed to poke a hole in the sky, and the rain began to pour down. We waited for Papa, then turned around together and went back inside.

We went to the cemetery in Edgewater, Momma and Daddy and Papa and I. Grandma and Uncle Wing followed in their car. Momma’s sisters said they would stop by later. Today is November 26 and it’s Kelly’s birthday. She would have been eleven if she hadn’t died from the aneurysm. I sat in the car and watched my family trudge to where my sister is buried. I still cannot look at her grave. I don’t know why.
I cried for a while. I felt angry for a while. I waited for them to come back, first watching and listening to a mockingbird sing and then watching as another storm began over the ocean, rolling up dark and sad. Before they got back into the car, the lightning was playing tag over the water, which I knew was as gray as the sky itself, the waves capping with thick white foam.
Daddy drove us to Burger King for dinner; then we drove around the old fort, alongside the river. The wind came in, and Papa rolled down his window and let the sticky air into the car. I rested my head on his shoulder.
When we pulled into the driveway at home, the sky was almost black. The streetlights had flickered on and were glowing small orange moons of light down onto the road. I leaped out of the car and ran across the lawn to Mrs. Comer’s. I squished through the hedge.
“Kelly, Kelly, Kelly,” my feet seemed to say as I ran. I ached inside. Large, fat raindrops plopped around and on me.
When I got to her house, I was greeted by the heavy smell of gardenias and Mrs. Comer. She slung open the front door wide, and I went in to wait out the storm with her.

Q: Could you please tell us a little about your writing background and how you made your first sale (including the title and publisher)?

I’ve always wanted to be a writer. When I was a little girl I wrote plays that my sister and I, or my cousins and I, would perform. Mostly Nana (my maternal grandmother) endured these plays (which once included borrowed music and us dancing around in her nylon nighties). Then, as I got into college, I began writing a collection of short stories. This was in my first creative writing class. Bruce Aufhammer was my teacher and I was a month away from turning 17 and excited to write. He gave me great encouragement.

Still, I didn’t believe in myself as a writer. After I married and began my family, I took a writing class offered by mail. My teacher was Louise Plummer ( a terrific YA writer whose titles include The Romantic Obsessions and Humiliations of Annie Sehlmier, A Dance for Three and Finding Daddy) and she encouraged me to find a publisher. I entered a contest at her suggestion, and four months later got a call from Dell. My first book did not win the contest, but Delacorte did publish it. Kelly and Me came out two years later.

Q: Readers and writers often like to get a behind the scenes peek of an author’s writing routine. It would be great if you could please share your typical writing day schedule.

Hahahahaha! I wish I did something typical. It seems that time slips away so quickly. What I would love is to write four hours a day—producing every minute. What I do is awake before the rest of the family and try to write for an hour or two. Later in the day I try to get back to my computer. Just last night, however, I made a goal to write 750-1250 new words each day. I have a novel to rewrite and get back to my editor, so I want get that finished. Having goals that you work toward is a good idea. Remember, the only way to publish is to actually write.

Q: Please tell us about your latest novel (title, publisher, release date) and what we can expect from your characters.

I hope you’re excited to follow Kyra Leigh Carlson as she makes some pretty big decisions. She lives in a polygamist community where everything the prophet says is law. She has a secret boyfriend and she’s found books (any kind of reading material has been banned from the community).

When Kyra gets the news that she will be chosen to marry someone else, she decides to do something few in her sect have the courage to do: she stands up for herself.

The book is called The Chosen One and the publisher is St. Martin’s Press. It comes out any second (May 12, 2009, to be exact!).

Q: What’s up next? Do you have another project in the works? If so, please tell us about it.

I have another book coming out with St. Martin’s that I working on right now. It’s called Lost in Peace. This is the story of Lacey, her mother who is ill, and a dead grandfather who keeps peeking into the family and stirring things up.

Q: Would you like to close with a writing tip?

Hmmmm. One of a writers best teachers, I think, can be books themselves. So you need to read. A lot. All the time. See what’s good out there and study what makes the book good. Get cheap copies of novels you like at used bookstores and write in the margins. Dissect the books. How is the beginning? The rise in tension? Do you see it happening on the page? Make notes—study other successful writers, really think about what you’re reading. I’d also like to say that ‘ly’ words are not your friend. Words like happily, interestingly, funnily. If you’re using this kind of word, it means your verb is weak. So there.

1. Tell us a little bit about how you came to be a writer.

I’ve always wanted to write. At quite young age I started playing with words. My mom went to college to be an English teacher and I remember her writing novels herself (she never published any of her novels—but man, did she ever write!). I wrote all through elementary school—and told lots of imagination-type stories to and with my friends. I wrote letters with one of my best friends that we made into mini epics!. In high school, one of my best friend’s and I gave each other writing assignments during lunch (an example is “You are a tennis shoe. Tell about your day.”). And when I was 16, I started the stories that wound up in my first book Kelly and Me.

2. How did you become interested in the topic of polygamous sects?

Long ago I heard about a girl who had run from her home because she didn’t want to marry a much-older family member. The moment I heard that story I was like, I’ll write a book about that some day. But the story stayed just a kernel of an idea for many, many years. This was a tough book to write. It need time to germinate.

3. What kind of research did you conduct to learn more about those sects before you wrote The Chosen One?

Well, the group that I write about, The Chosen Ones, are fictitious. I made that place up, the people, everyone. I based it in some fact. There are some groups of polygamous groups that say the more severe polygamists (the ones marrying younger girls) give polygamy a bad name. (I’m just saying what I’ve read!)

I did a huge amount of research before I started writing and during the time I was writing. There are many different kinds of polygamist groups in the USA and in Canada and Mexico, and of course, around the world. So while this book is grounded in fact, it is still fiction. Some of this abuse is real-life. Some is from my imagination. Patrick’s story is made up. The dunking in ice water? I heard from another writer who interviewed someone who was a polygamist, that type of discipline is true of some groups (children are to be seen and not heard.).

4. In your book, you write about both good and bad aspects of being part of a multi-family society. What are your personal views on the topic?

I prefer to stay in the kind of family that is more traditional. Polygamy is NOT the way of life for me.

5. The mobile library is very important in Kyra’s life for many reasons. Did a mobile library have an influence on you when you were young? If so, in what way?

No, but I have always loved the library. I’ve spent a lot of time in libraries over the years. I can’t hardly seem to get out of one without a pile of books. In fact, when I head to the library, I make sure I have plenty of daughters around to help me carry out the stacks of books! We’re getting ready to move and that means I am getting a new library card (right after I have the electricity turned on at the house!).

6. Kyra’s world is transformed when she begins to read books that are banned from her compound. Do you believe in the transformative power of books even for someone who is not shut off from the wider world?

Oh absolutely! People read for a number of reasons. Just for the pleasure, of course. Or to learn something new. Or because a book has been talked about. But studies show that kids read for other reasons, too. One is to experience something that they could not without a book—like being a wizard, for example. Or if the reader comes from a good, strong home, they might read a dark, edgy book because they want to see the way others live. Also, kids might read because they, themselves, are going through hard times. A book might show them how a protagonist has survived what the reader is going through. Books change people’s lives. I believe in reading and I encourage my kids to read just about everything that is out there.

7. Kyra is only thirteen years old, and she knows if she rejects what she feels is wrong, she could lose her family. Where does she get the courage to consider acting with such dire consequences?

I think Kyra gets this courage from something that is inside her. But this something has been facilitated by parents and siblings who love her and the idea that outside her world there is freedom. That thought of freedom seems right to Kyra. Somehow, Kyra is one of those people who comes with the courage to be different—and to stand up for what she believes is right.

8. Is there anything else you would like to say to readers of MotherDaugtherBookClub.com?

Have fun reading as Moms and Daughters! Sheesh, what a cool thing to do. I still read out loud to my girls. We read at night before bed. What a cool time to be together. As a mom I love the time my girls and I spend discussing books we’ve read. You all are luckies!