Eleven-year-old Juniper Berry lives in a cabin with her family deep in the wild woods. Living off the grid is usually exciting, like the time she chased off three growling raccoons with a tree branch and some acorns, or when she thought she glimpsed the legendary Bigfoot. But her happy life in the wild ends abruptly when her younger brother gets sick, and the family moves to the city to be closer to the hospital.
Juniper and her older sister are sent to live with cousins they hardly know and attend a public school for the first time, which is harder to navigate than the wild woods ever were. Juniper feels like a wolf cub separated from her pack.
When Juniper notices that her cousin, Alayna, is being bullied by so-called friends, she’s ready to fight back like the wild geese do when protecting their goslings, but her cousin tells her to stay out of it; she doesn’t want Juniper making things worse.
As the hospital bills for her brother start piling up, Juniper knows they’ll need to be paid before the family can go back to the woods, so she decides to make enough money to help out. With Alayna’s support, Juniper starts posting videos filled with her wisdom from the woods, hoping to get a following. But what if it doesn’t work? What if the bills never get paid? Not going home to the wild is Juniper’s worst nightmare. But while she’s stuck in the city, she might as well make the most of it, like sticking up for her cousin, for starters.
The Wild Journey of Juniper Berry is a story about perseverance when faced with difficult and unfamiliar challenges, belonging and finding your identity, compassion for others, and learning that our differences can sometimes be our strengths.
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“Juniper’s first-person voice and the many memorably developed characters she meets cultivate a feel-good story that reminds readers of both the pitfalls and the benefits of coexisting with others.”
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Publishers Weekly