July & August

John Bird's wife died mysteriously right after their twins July and August were born, and he is left to raise the children alone. He's not doing it well. He doesn't want to explain death to them, so he tells them their mother went into the woods to live with the animals-not once imagining, of course, that it might be true. Emma Bird finds herself living in the forest (that she once saved from the mayor's axe) with a community of kind and comical animals. There's an owl who is obsessed with Twilight, an erudite mouse, and a young squirrel who desperately wants to be cool enough to hang with the fox. They are all kept in line by an enigmatic cat-who knows they all owe Emma a debt. July and August have tried for years to get into the forest, but it won't let them in-and their father won't stop warning them away. But when a huge storm finally opens a path into the woods, they take it-and discover an enchanted world. For readers of Annie Hartnett's Road to Tender Hearts and Bill Roorbach's Beep-and anyone who loved Alice in Wonderland and Watership Down-July & August is a magical novel about the ways humans and animals save one another.