Rocky Pond Books

Weird Sad and Silent: a novel

Posted on by alisonmcghee

Welcome to the world, Daisy Jackson! My new novel, Weird Sad and Silent, is available everywhere as of today, May 6. The idea for this novel came to me in a rush one day when a girl appeared in my mind and said, “To begin, my name is Daisy Jackson.” That became the first line of the novel. I sat down and began writing and then just kept on writing until Daisy had told me her whole story.

A couple things about Daisy: when stressed, she counts on her fingertips, under the table or behind her back, up to 111 and back down again, so lightly that no one will see. But one day, when she thinks she’s alone, she starts counting out loud, and the bullies notice and start calling her Weird Sad and Silent. After that awful day, Daisy learns how to invisibilize herself.

She’s seen and loved by a few people, though: her neighbor Lulu, who stays with her while her mama Flora works the overnight shift at Glorious Cleaning. The school librarian Marimba, whose library is always a place of refuge. Captain the custodian, who calls everyone by their first and last names and who’s always there to open the door for Daisy so she can slip into school early. Not to mention Rumble Paws, the feral cat who lurks around her apartment building. He’s scrawny and wary, most of one ear is missing, and he too knows how to invisibilize himself.

But one day a new kid shows up at school, Austin Roseau. He notices Daisy right away, no matter how invisibilized she thinks she is. And everything starts to change. This book is for the weird sad silent kids everywhere who, like Daisy and Austin, are actually funny and lovable and full of curiosity. It’s also for all the other kids and no-longer-kids who grew up like most of us did, witnessing bullying and hating it, and who ever since have sought to make the world a kinder, funnier, loving place.

Starred review from Kirkus: “A beautiful story of unvarnished honesty and tender hope—this courageous protagonist will capture every heart.”

Click here to order your own copy.

Minnesotans! Come to my book party! 
I rarely do book events and I would love to see you at the book party for my brand-new novel, Weird Sad and Silent, in the world as of today. Please come to the launch party at Next Chapter Booksellers in St. Paul on Tuesday, May 27, at 6 pm. I’ll read a little, we’ll talk, we’ll celebrate, and there might even be some tiny gifts for you. Click here for all the details. 

WEIRD SAD AND SILENT (book giveaway!)

Posted on by alisonmcghee

Friends, please meet my girl Daisy Jackson. See that look in her eyes? This girl has some questions, and she’s also got opinions, not that she’s about to share them with you. Daisy is ten years old and highly skilled in the art of invisibilizing, a skill she honed two years ago, when the school bullies nicknamed her Weird Sad and Silent.

Daisy sits in the back of the classroom, she doesn’t raise her hand, and she doesn’t eat lunch in the cafeteria. In fact, Daisy talks mostly to the adults in her life: her mama Flora, her neighbor Lulu, Marimba the school librarian, and Captain the school custodian.

That’s until a new kid, Austin, shows up one day. There’s something about Austin, something Daisy can’t explain, something that makes him feel like…a kindred spirit. Daisy might be your kindred spirit too. WEIRD SAD AND SILENT, on bookshelves everywhere May 6. 

GIVEAWAY: Is there a kindred spirit in your life? Someone who just gets you and always has? Tell me about them in an email or the comments, and I’ll enter you in this week’s drawing for a signed copy of the novel.

WEIRD SAD AND SILENT, on bookshelves everywhere May 6. 

My new novel, Telephone of the Tree

Posted on by alisonmcghee

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.