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The Invisible Girl

Laura Ruby - Author

Gurl’s new invisibility ability offers a way to act in a city where she has felt out of place. The story pairs her escape plan with mysteries about identity, family history and the city’s strange inhabitants.

More about this book

Step into a wildly imaginative world with an invisible girl, a flying boy and where being weird is brilliantly wonderful! A magically fantastical story from American author, Laura Ruby.In a vast and sparkling city where nearly everyone can fly, 12-year-old Gurl is trapped. Orphaned and lonely, she believes she is nothing more than a flightless "leadfoot", until one fateful night when she discovers that she has the power to make herself invisible.But even with this newfound talent, Gurl can't hide from a giant rat man with a taste for cats, a manipulative matron with a penchant for plastic surgery, and a belligerent boy named Bug.Gradually, Gurl learns to control her power and teams up with Bug to figure out who and what she is. Their quest takes them on a wild ride where they confront mind-bending monkeys, an eccentric genius with a head full of grass and a pocket full of kittens and the handsome but lethal Sweetcheeks Grabowski – the gangster who holds the key to Gurl's past...and the world's future.

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Book Analysis

At a Glance

Discover

Isolation· ExplainedIdentity· ExplainedBelonging· Explained

Consider

Social conflictFamily disruptionViolence and harm

Personalised Fit

Beyond the Cover

isolationidentitybelongingworld-buildingfantasyplot structure

FictionNovel

Themes in Context

Belonging and self-understanding

Gurl feels lonely and out of place because she cannot fly, then discovers she can become invisible and seeks to understand who she is.Exploratory / explanatory

How the book presents it: The plot connects exclusion with Gurl’s search for identity, while her new ability complicates how she sees herself.

Talk about: What, if anything, helps Gurl see herself differently?

An unfamiliar, fantastical city

The story combines flying and invisibility with mind-controlling monkeys, unusual inhabitants and recognisable city routines.Exploratory / explanatory

How the book presents it: The book presents this mainly as information or explanation.

Talk about: Which details make the city easiest to picture, and which take longer to make sense of?

Why It May Be Worth Reading

Fantasy oddities sit alongside recognisable city life, while the story follows two children trying to survive with little money and no home. That contrast gives the adventure a grounded edge.

What Deserves Attention

Gurl is teased and ignored, and the matron exploits her by making her steal. The children are pursued by criminals and face danger; the story also includes an orphanage and life on the streets.

A Conversation Worth Having

How might Gurl’s feeling of being out of place affect what she believes about herself, and what could help her reconsider that view?

Reading Approach

Try the opening together, then pause to map the city’s unusual rules and inhabitants. If the direction feels hard to follow, focus on Gurl’s immediate situation before predicting where the larger mystery leads.

Confidence & Basis

Theme indicators describe how the book presents a topic; they are not a verdict on the whole book or your family's values. Confidence reflects how much book-specific material was checked. Only part of the book information was available, so some details remain unconfirmed.

What remains unconfirmed

Belonging and self-understanding: The full resolution of Gurl’s self-discovery is unclear.
An unfamiliar, fantastical city: The full range of the city’s rules and how the mysteries resolve are unclear.

The Invisible Girl (The Wall and the Wing, Book 1) - Laura Ruby - Google Books

Limited information

Checked: 1 October 2026.

Relevant to: Belonging and self-understanding

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