Allison McGhee's Telephone of the Tree tells the story of young Ayla who is impatiently waiting the return of her best friend Kiri, who is away. As the story unfolds we learn the truth about why Kiri left and Ayla's growing desperation for their return. When she discovers a telephone in her favorite tree, Ayla is given a way to cope with the idea that her best friend might never return.

This book is unputdownable! I devoured it. It makes you feel all the feelings. An entire neighborhood of characters is there to support Ayla as we discover her truth. At just 20o pages my students would feel like this story would be one they could easily finish.

A beautiful story of gaining closure and dealing with grief after loss. The magical realism that propelled the story along also helped to showcase how different grief can look.

Ayla has always loved trees. She and her best friend Kiri had special trees, and everyone knew that they were likely in their trees if they were looking for them. When Kiri goes away, Ayla is alone in her tree waiting for a chance to talk to her best friend again. One day, an old-fashioned telephone appears in the branches of Ayla’s birch tree, and soon people start using this phone to call their loved ones who have passed away. Ayla is determined to not make a phone call herself even as she watches her community embrace the mysterious phone.

Unfortunately, this book didn’t resonate with me. The writing style is repetitive and uses a lot of spaces and other devices to enhance the emotion, but I found it gimmicky rather than effective. The writing style made it difficult to tell what was really happening or even how old the character was. It seemed like the character was too young to understand rather than refusing to acknowledge it in her grief. It also made me feel more distant from the story, and I got more annoyed the longer it took to confirm what had happened. I felt like it was patronizing rather than sweet or moving. Overall, I think the “novel in verse without really being in verse” took away from the effectiveness.

When I could get past the writing style, I think the book does some interesting things in portraying grief. I liked many of the background stories of the people coming to use the telephone, and I liked the general depictions of the community caring for each other in their grief.

I think people who have experienced surprising emotions or not believing when something tragic happens may relate to this book and be deeply touched by it. Unfortunately it fell flat for me.

This story was incredibly disappointing because it had so much good potential, but I ended up DNFing it. I was incredibly disturbed and disappointed by non-binary pronouns being used to describe a CHILD, who does not have the emotional, physical, or intellectual maturity to make a decision such as that. It was an immediate turn off and I decided this book and I are not compatible.

In TELEPHONE OF THE TREE, lifelong best friends Ayla and Kiri have lived in a tree-lined neighborhood for all their lives and consider themselves to be “tree people.” They’ve spent hours together caring for the trees and hanging out on their branches. Now, Kiri has gone somewhere far away, and Ayla is longing for their return. As Ayla waits, a clunky, old-fashioned rotary telephone appears in the branches of her tree. She watches and listens from afar as members of her community approach the tree, pick up the phone, and use it to speak to those they have lost. Will this phone allow her to connect with Kiri once again?

As the book progresses, the story behind Kiri’s going away unravels for readers and they see Ayla slowly processing and coming to accept the sequence of events. This is a beautifully written novel about the complexities of grief, anchored in the trees that represent and define the community.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sharing an eARC of the book with me.

Ayla and her best friend Kiri have always been tree people. Neighbors and family know they can most likely find them within the branches. But right now, Kiri has gone somewhere far away and Ayla can only wait in the branches of her birch tree for her friend’s return.

Then, a mysterious, old-fashioned phone appears on Ayla’s tree. Where did it come from? And why are people showing up to use this phone to call their passed loved ones?

All Ayla wants is for Kiri to come home. Until then, she will keep Kiri’s things safe, her nightmares to herself, and she will not make a call on that telephone.

As a child who lost her dad at the age of twelve (three days into my seventh grade school year), a telephone in a tree to call him would be amazing, so of course, this made me tear up quite a bit.

This is a quick read. It’s broken up in kind of a novel-in-verse type of way, but not being fully a novel-in-verse. I’ll probably still rope it in with that genre of novel though.

Even though this is a quick read, there is such a punch that gets delivered. I can see this helping younger readers with their grief of a passing loved one. We can’t stay in the denial land (or lalala land) forever and it’s important to have the space to heal and accept in our own time.

This novel is guaranteed to stick with me for a long time, if not forever.

*Thank you Rocky Pond Books and NetGalley for an advance digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

Beautiful and heartbreaking!
This book handles the subject matter in a delicate and meaningful way!
I thought the length was well-suited to the topic.
I think this book could help a lot of readers.

A cathartic book if you are feeling sad, Telephone of the Tree uses simple but compelling prose to follow a young girl through the stages of her grief. While the story is simple, this book felt very intimate, with the dynamic text placing the reader directly in the character’s headspace. It’s weird to say, but this book emotionally felt like putting on a favorite shawl or cardigan on a blustery day; it doesn’t do much to keep out the chill, but you wear it for the comfort it brings. If this were on my shelf I would not think of it often, but would be happy to find it in arms reach on the days when all I need is a safe, comfortable cry.