An unforgettable story of grief and the support of community as a young girl, faced with aching loss, begins to understand that what we love will always be with us.
Ayla and her best friend Kiri have always been tree people. They each have their own special tree, and neighbors and family know that they are most likely to be found within the branches. But after an accident on their street, Kiri has gone somewhere so far away that Ayla can only wait and wait in her birch, longing to be able to talk with Kiri again.
Then a mysterious, old-fashioned telephone appears one morning, nestled in the limbs of Ayla's birch tree. Where did it come from? she wonders. And why are people showing up to use this phone to call their loved ones? Especially loved ones who have passed on.
All Ayla wants is for Kiri to come home. Until that day comes, she will keep Kiri's things safe. She'll keep her nightmares to herself. And she will not make a call on that telephone.
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? “Rather than trot in a therapist or some other mouthpiece for wise counseling, the author gives her protagonist subtler (and more believably effective) help reaching that insight—most notably parents who give her space rather than unwanted advice, and her grandfather’s old telephone. Readers feeling Ayla’s profound sense of loss will be relieved when she finds a way to live with it. Raw and sad but lit with occasional glints of humor and ending, as it should, on a rising note.
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Kirkus, starred review