It all starts with a big disappointment for Hunter Wilson: there's no monster under his bed. And that's not even the worst of it. He's pretty sure his forgetful father and his distracted mother are both at least part alien – but like, the boring kind of alien. His school has the lamest field trips ever, it has no wizards of any kind, and the bullies are lined up outside just waiting to hassle him and his best (and only) friend Gert on their way in. It seems like Hunter will never have an exciting adventure like the ones in the books he's always reading. That is, until he finds a hollow tree behind the school populated by tiny people, and crawls through it into a humming, glowing forest. In this glorious, amazing place, Hunter meets a story-telling raven who's much more than he seems, and then almost gets eaten by a giant dog-monster, before being cursed by magic bees. Then he discovers the forest is under attack by a tree-eating metal moon crewed by four-armed lizard people, and he'll have to stand up and fight if he doesn't want to lose the dream world he's only just found.
