Originally published in 2007, The PLAIN Janes by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg is the story of teenage misfit artist Jane Beckels, who is forced to leave fictional Metro City—a clear stand-in for New York—after a terrorist attack.
Her parents move to the suburbs for safety. Jane hates her new suburban town until she meets a group of also not-so-popular high school girls also named Jane (Theater Jane, Brain Jayne, and Polly Jane, the girl jock). They band together to create an anonymous guerrilla art collective: People Loving Art In Neighborhoods—The PLAIN Janes.
The book’s new hardcover edition combines the original two volumes with a third previously unpublished volume. In this 11-page excerpt from the new section, the girls are distracted by their imminent graduation from high school. They’ve also been forced to trade their previously exciting, unsanctioned guerrilla art attacks for nice but lackluster city-approved projects in the park. The PLAIN Janes was published this month by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers.
