Forever Birchwood
(Book)

"The middle-grade debut of star picture-book author and illustrator Danielle Daniel. Adventurous, trail-blazing Wolf lives in a northern mining town and spends her days exploring the mountains and wilderness with her three best friends: Penny, Ann, and Brandi. The girls' secret refuge is their treehouse hideaway, Birchwood, Wolf's favourite place on earth. After her beloved grandmother tells her that she is the great-granddaughter of a tree talker, Wolf knows that she is destined to protect the birch trees and wildlife that surround her. But Wolf's mother doesn't understand this connection at all. Not only is she reluctant to engage with their family's Indigenous roots, she seems suspiciously on the wrong side of the environmental protection efforts in their hometown. To make matters worse, she's just started dating an annoying new boyfriend named Roger, whose motives, and construction company, seem equally suspect. As summer arrives, though, so do bigger problems. Wolf and her friends discover plastic orange bands wrapped around the trees near their cherished hangout spot, and their once stable friendship seems on the verge of unraveling. Birchwood has given them so much--can they even stay together long enough to save this special place? With gorgeous yet understated language, Danielle Daniel beautifully captures an urgent and aching time in a young person's life. To read this astonishing middle-grade debut is to have your heart broken and then tenderly mended."--

Issued also in electronic format.