Description
Eleven-year-old Juniper Berry lives with her family deep in the wild woods. Living off the grid is pretty exciting, but her happy life in the wild ends abruptly when her younger brother gets sick, and they move to the city to be closer to the hospital. Juniper and her older sister end up living with cousins they hardly know and attending public school for the first time, which is harder to navigate than the wild woods ever were. Juniper feels like a wolf cub separated from her pack.
As the hospital bills for her brother start piling up, Juniper knows they’ll need to be paid before the family can go back to the woods, so she decides to make enough money to help out. With her cousin Alayna’s support, Juniper starts posting videos filled with her wisdom from the woods, hoping to get a following. But what if it doesn’t work? What if the bills never get paid? Not going home to the wild is Juniper’s worst nightmare. While she’s stuck in the city, she might as well make the most of it, like sticking up for Alayna, who’s being bullied by her supposed friends, for starters.
The Wild Journey of Juniper Berry is a story about perseverance when faced with difficult and unfamiliar challenges, belonging and finding your identity, compassion for others, and learning that our differences can sometimes be our strengths.
Growing up, Chad Morris was fascinated by blue whales. He read books about the world's largest creature and did grade school reports on them. He drew pictures of them and taped them to his wall (the pictures, not whales--that would be impossible). He would love to see a blue whale in real life, but he'd rather not meet a bobbitt or zombie worm. Seriously, he'd prefer his bones not become jelly.
Shelly Brown was born in the Northwest and grew up near the ocean. It's a part of her. She can surf and point out all sorts of sea creatures and plants (though not necessarily at the same time). Now that she lives in the mountains, she has saved money, planned, and taken Chad and their five kids to both coasts to swim, surf, search tide pools, snorkel, and watch sea lions, seals, turtles, whales, and more. Her soul speaks ocean.