My Brother's Shadow

Fans of David Almond’s Skellig and Patrick Ness’s A Monster Calls will embrace this deeply affecting middle grade novel in which a girl suffering from terrible grief befriends a mysterious wild boy.

When I saw him that first time I screamed—a small and silent scream, all inside, in my gut. Eleven-year-old Kaia, who has felt isolated since her older brother committed suicide more than a year before, befriends a wild boy who mysteriously appears at her London school. Though the boy is mute and can only communicate with a flash of his gray eyes, he might be the friend Kaia needs to bring her through her grief.

Here’s a fascinating story, which offers a fresh and completely original portrayal of loss and renewal.

"Readers who love stories of overcoming personal struggles and emotional strife will eat this up." —Booklist

"Fans of realistic fiction... will surely devour Avery’s latest." —School Library Journal

"[Kaia's] confessional narration and self-aware observations yield a believable and haunting portrait of grief." —Publishers Weekly

Tom Avery is the author of the middle-grade novel Too Much Trouble, winner of the Frances Lincoln Diverse Voices Children’s Book Award. He was born and raised in London in a very large, very loud family, descendants of the notorious pirate Henry Avery. Tom has worked as a teacher in inner-city schools in London and Birmingham, and he lives in North London with his wife and two sons.