• Age: 9 to 12
• Grade: 4 to 7
• Reading age: 9 to 12

A year after her best friend Lora mysteriously disappears from Clearwood Home, twelve-year-old Ellis is put in charge of the orphanage’s new arrival: Pip.

Small, silent, and strange, Pip is inexplicably drawn to the eerie Ghost Tree, a fossilized relic of the Blight that killed every forest in the world. But Pip’s connection to nature makes her, Ellis, and their friend Jasper targets of Mother Dear, a sinister, scientific mastermind determined to destroy the natural world and replace it with her robot-hybrid one.

Kidnapped by their teacher, kidnapped again by Mother Dear’s robotic pterodactyl-like creatures, and then held captive at her work camp, Ellis, Pip, and Jasper must work together to make their daring escape, learn the truth of Lora’s fate, and uncover the key to nature’s regeneration.

Alison Hughes is the award-winning author of more than twenty books for children and young adults. Her YA novel Hit the Ground Running was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Awards. Hughes’ works have also won the R. Ross Annett Award and the Writers’ Union of Canada Writing for Children Award, and have been nominated for numerous provincial children’s choice awards. Hughes is a university writing advisor and gives workshops and presentations at schools, libraries, conferences, and festivals. She lives in Edmonton, Alberta.

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