friendship, cats, family, fiction, middle grade, children, knitting, adventure, middle-grade, 11yo

Good Reads Publisher Review: "Alder has always lived in his cozy little house in Southern California. And for as long as he can remember, the old, reliable, comforting walnut tree has stood between his house and the one next door. That is, until a new family—with a particularly annoying girl his age—moves into the neighboring house and, without warning, cuts it down.
Oak doesn’t understand why her family had to move to Southern California. She has to attend a new school, find new friends, and live in a new house that isn’t even ready—her mother had to cut down a tree on their property line in order to make room for a second floor. And now a strange boy next door won’t stop staring at her, like she did something wrong moving here in the first place.
As Oak and Alder start school together, they can’t imagine ever becoming friends. But the two of them soon discover a series of connections between them—mysterious, possibly even magical puzzles they can’t put together. At least not without each other’s help."
My Comment : Reviewed for VPRC. Nice enough story of supernatural bonds between sisters/siblings. One for Grade 5 - 6 students. ( )

Alder lives with his mom; his dad died when Alder was three, but a portrait of the family standing in front of a beautiful tree hangs on their wall. When new neighbors move into the house next door and cut down the tree - which is technically on their property - Alder and his mother are angry and sad, and Alder isn't inclined to make friends with the new girl, Oak, even though they're the same age and wind up in the same class at school. But a series of coincidences keep pushing them together, like adopting kittens who are siblings, or Alder's mom buying one of Oak's mom's books at a library book sale. Alder and Oak are connected in another surprising way, which they discover through a school project on family.

A tender story about family, a friendship that gets off to a rocky start, and the glimmers of implausibility - but possibility - that are there if you look from the corner of your eye.

Quotes

What bothered Oak more than the loss of any of these things in particular, or all of them collectively, was the fact that neither of her parents cared about what Oak was losing or how she felt about the move. (14)

...sometimes building something new meant destroying something old. (65)

Alder found that he didn't quite want to think about what had happened, or hadn't happened, where he might have been, or where he might not have been. It was much more likely, he was coming to believe, that none of it had happened at all. (109)

What she wanted to say - what she didn't say - was that her mother never asked her anything. (145)

"All this time," said Oak, her voice reverent, "and it was right next door." (174)

"I suppose sometimes weird things just happen," Alder suggested.
"Yes," said Oak. "But it seems like lots of weird things are happening to us." (175)

When was the last time you encountered something for which you could find no plausible explanation? And is it that hard to accept that, perhaps, the truest explanation is an implausible one? Implausible, after all, is not the same as impossible. (Feline Teleportation, 177)

"Sometimes, one thing has to end to make room for something else. All of us have to make hard choices, Oak." (183)

"And you know what's even harder than making hard choices? Dealing with hard choices someone else got to make." (Oak to her mom, 184)

Most people, dear reader, don't notice most things....Paying attention, dear reader, is the key to most things. (Feline Teleportation, 206-207)

What other secrets did the universe hold? If cats could portal hop and enemies could become friends, what else might be possible? (230)

"Little things can become big things, if you let them." (Oak's dad, 277) ( )