For Ages
9 to 12

Fans of David Almond’s Skellig and Patrick Ness’s A Monster Calls will embrace this deeply affecting middle grade novel in which a girl suffering from terrible grief befriends a mysterious wild boy.

When I saw him that first time I screamed—a small and silent scream, all inside, in my gut. Eleven-year-old Kaia, who has felt isolated since her older brother committed suicide more than a year before, befriends a wild boy who mysteriously appears at her London school. Though the boy is mute and can only communicate with a flash of his gray eyes, he might be the friend Kaia needs to bring her through her grief.

Here’s a fascinating story, which offers a fresh and completely original portrayal of loss and renewal.

"Readers who love stories of overcoming personal struggles and emotional strife will eat this up." —Booklist

"Fans of realistic fiction... will surely devour Avery’s latest." —School Library Journal

"[Kaia's] confessional narration and self-aware observations yield a believable and haunting portrait of grief." —Publishers Weekly

An Excerpt fromMy Brother's Shadow

ARRIVAL
It was winter when he arrived. The chill wind blew through his ragged clothes, turning his skin a raw pink. Chapped lips and bloodied gums, his face pressed against the window.
When I saw him that first time I screamed--a small and silent scream, all inside, in my gut. It was the most terrifying, the most thrilling, the strangest thing to happen in a maths lesson in a long time.
The boy dipped below the frame like a duck. He soon resurfaced.
His eyes--a sharp, cold gray--searched the classroom, passing from face to face. I stared right back.
When his eyes met mine through the frosted glass and my heart was stilled in my chest, I thought perhaps, for just a moment, a flickering smile parted those cracked lips.
Smiles can be small, tiny even, minute. Smiles can be just in your eyes. Magic, secret smiles that you don’t want anyone to see but you can’t help. Or magic, secret smiles that you want just one person to see--the one person you love the most, who knows your face the…