Scott's prose is spare and damning, relying on suggestive details and their impact on Alice to convey the unimaginable violence she repeatedly experiences. Ray, however, has an even more sinister plan: he orders Alice to find a new girl, then train her to Ray's tastes. but the thing about hearts is that they always want to keep beating”). The narrator knows she is the second of the girls Ray has abducted and renamed Alice Ray killed the first when she outgrew her childlike body at 15, and now Alice half-hopes her own demise is approaching (“I think of the knife in the kitchen, of the bridges I've seen from the bus. Consider sharing the presentations with parent groups such as the PTSA or athletic boosters.May be unprepared for the unrelieved terror within this chilling novel, about a 15-year-old girl who has spent the last five years being abused by a kidnapper named Ray and is kept powerless by Ray's promise to harm her family if she makes one false move. Have each group develop brochures and a PowerPoint presentation to share with the class. Working in groups, have students research child protection laws in their community and tips for keeping children safe.Write a brief narrative about one and why it is an important experience for a young girl. Collect symbols for five experiences and present those to the class. Imagine you could give back some of the childhood experiences she missed. From the age of ten until fifteen she missed many childhood experiences. After comparing and contrasting the two pieces, have students write a poem or short story using stream of consciousness. Have students read a classical poem or short story that uses stream of consciousness and compare and contrast style and the overall effect and mood of the two pieces.Why doesn’t Alice leave, even though she has many opportunities to do so? How does Ray hold her emotionally captive? Many children today are abducted, abused, and held in captivity - many are held for years like Alice, and when given opportunities to escape, they don’t.Why do you think he did so? Why did he take a gun to the park instead of reporting his suspicions to the police? At one point when Ray is abusing Alice she thinks, “…the thing about hearts is that they always want to keep beating.” What does this passage say about her resiliency and the way in which the story plays out in the end?.

While most of the story is told from first-person point of view, what effect does the shift have on your responses to the story? What do you think the author hoped to achieve in shifting the point of view? In the first three chapters, Alice’s story moves from third-person point of view, to second, then to first.

Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott