Zebra Forest

by Adina Rishe Gewirtz

Overview

“An emotionally honest family story with an ending that’s hopeful without being implausibly upbeat.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

In an extraordinary debut novel, an escaped fugitive upends everything two siblings think they know about their family, their past, and themselves. Driven by suspense and psychological intrigue, Zebra Forest deftly portrays an unfolding standoff of truth against family secrets — and offers an affecting look at two resourceful, imaginative kids as they react and adapt to the hand they’ve been dealt.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780763671662
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	09/09/2014
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.60(d)
Lexile:	750L (what's this?)
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

About the Author

 

Read an Excerpt

We called it the Zebra Forest because it looked like a zebra. Its trees were a mix of white birch and chocolate oak, and if you stood a little ways from it, like at our house looking across the back field that was our yard, you saw stripes, black and white, that went up into green. Gran never went out there except near dusk, when the shadows gathered. She didn’t like to be out in full sunlight usually, and told me once she didn’t like the lines the trees made. Gran was always saying stuff like that. Perfectly beautiful things — like a clean blue sky over the Zebra — made tears come to her eyes, and if I tried to get her to come outside with me, she’d duck her head and hurry upstairs to bed. But then it would be storming, lightning sizzling the tops of the trees, and she’d run round the house, cheerful, making us hot cocoa and frying up pancakes and warming us with old quilts. We had few rules in our house, but keeping out of the Zebra Forest in a storm was one of them.

(Continues…)

---

Excerpted from "Zebra Forest"
by .
Copyright © 2014 Adina Rishe Gewirtz.
Excerpted by permission of Candlewick Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---

Editorial Reviews

Gewirtz veers away from melodrama, deftly capturing nuances of family dynamics in spare prose. ... [A]udiences will appreciate this novel’s multilayered characters and touching message of hope and forgiveness.
—School Library Journal (starred review)

Debut author Gewirtz successfully conveys the terror and tedium of being trapped...An emotionally honest family story with an ending that’s hopeful without being implausibly upbeat.
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

From the Publisher