My new novel, Telephone of the Tree
Friends, Telephone of the Tree will be on bookshelves as of May 7!
Long ago, I listened to an NPR story about Japan’s “wind telephone,” a disconnected pay phone in northern Japan that people use to speak to their lost loved ones. That story has haunted me ever since, and Telephone of the Tree is the result of six years of trying (and failing) and trying (and failing) to write a book that would bring readers the same feelings of beauty and longing that the NPR story brought me. 
Telephone of the Tree is supposedly for children but I keep getting emails from grownup readers that it goes straight to their own hearts. Which makes sense, because I wrote it for everyone who’s ever longed to talk, even one more time, to someone they love. Click here for pre-order links – I always encourage buying from independent book stores. (Also, the reason you always hear writers urging their friends to pre-order their books is that the number of pre-orders determines how many books are printed…!)
The first few (starred!) reviews are in:
★ “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.” —Kirkus, starred review
★ “The reveal that the phone was placed by Ayla’s grandpa who used it to “call” his wife after she passed is just one beautiful details in a story that focuses on generational healing rather than generational trauma. While more mature readers may quickly realize that Kiri has died, the novel’s hybrid of lyrically written plot fragments and stream of consciousness serve to poetically reveal the facts as Ayla becomes ready to process them.” —The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, starred review
“Inspired by Itaru Sasaki’s phone booth in Japan, where people can symbolically call deceased loved ones, McGhee lays bare the powerful emotions entangled with loss while demonstrating the strength found in community.” —Booklist
“McGhee injects a speculative twist to this tender tale about death and grief. Employing spare, sensory language, McGhee explores the painful negative space created by loss and the devastation of a friendship cut short, as well as the healing found in moving forward while remembering that ‘there’s more… so much more.'” —Publishers Weekly
Penguin Random House, the publisher, describes the book this way:
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.
Alison McGhee 