Kyleah's Tree [Perfect Paperback]

Janet Muirhead Hill (Author), Herb Leonhard (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 20, 2008

Wishing on the sunrise from her treetop refuge, eleven-year-old Kyleah Ralston seeks magic to right all that is wrong in her life. Her twin brother is lost to her, and she believes that her father abandoned her because she is not pretty. To add to her woes, her foster family does not understand her. When she is banned from climbing her favorite tree, she agrees to join Benjamin, her older foster-brother in his scheme to run away. Kyleah and Benjamin encounter many narrow escapes and breath-taking adventures on their journey from south-east Kansas to Moose Jaw, Canada. Through it all, Kyleah learns self-acceptance. She learns the true meaning of home and that family has more to do with love and respect than with blood.

Editorial Reviews

Review

A touching story about a young girl going through the trials and hardships of living in a foster home. Her runaway escape with her foster brother, Benjamin, is filled with emotion and suspense. The last half of the book really keeps you on your toes to see what will happen next. The characters are described in such depth that you feel as if you know them. I loved this book. --Ashley Grimes, age 14, reviewer<br /><br />Author, Janet Muirhead Hill has crafted a YA fiction that tugs at the deepest emotions....This heart-stopping, sometimes dangerous adventure is a real page-turner as you follow Kyleah and Benjamin on a quest to find long-lost family. --Mary Cunningham, Author of the Cynthia's Attic<i/> series<br /><br />This young adult story addresses the problems of being an abandoned or orphan child living with foster care givers and the child imagining many threats that either don t exist or are misinterpreted. Kyleah believes that if she could become prettier, her abandoning father and twin brother might come for her. She also believes that if she climbs a tall oak tree in the front yard right at sun rise, she will get her wishes.    She and foster brother Benjamin decide to run away from the foster home in Kansas to Canada, where they almost freeze while trying to escape border patrol and RCMP policemen. This is an exciting story that teaches much about many critical concepts as well as entertaining the reader. We rated it four hearts --Bob Spear, Publisher and Chief Reviewer, Heartland Reviews

A touching story about a young girl going through the trials and hardships of living in a foster home. Her runaway escape with her foster brother, Benjamin, is filled with emotion and suspense. The last half of the book really keeps you on your toes to see what will happen next. The characters are described in such depth that you feel as if you know them. I loved this book. --Ashley Grimes, age 14, reviewer

Author, Janet Muirhead Hill has crafted a YA fiction that tugs at the deepest emotions....This heart-stopping, sometimes dangerous adventure is a real page-turner as you follow Kyleah and Benjamin on a quest to find long-lost family. --Mary Cunningham, Author of the Cynthia's Attic<i/> series

About the Author

Janet Muirhead Hill writes from her rural Montana home where she lives with her husband Stan. She is also president of Raven Publishing, Inc. a small company that produces 2-4 titles per year, by various authors. She enjoys writing, teaching, and visiting with children in schools. She conducts both writing and publishing workshops. Other books by Janet Muirhead Hill include the award-winning, six-book series about Miranda and Starlight<i/> and Dannys Dragon<i/> which was a finalist for ForeWord Magazines Book-of-the-Year Award, 2006. A companion novel to Kyleah's Tree<i/> will follow soon.

Product Details

• Perfect Paperback: 204 pages
• Publisher: Raven Publishing, Inc. of Montana (August 20, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0977252590
• ISBN-13: 978-0977252596
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,282,768 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

In 1994, Riding the ski lift at Bridger Bowl, just north of Bozeman, MT, "Miranda and Starlight" was conceived. My then eight-year-old granddaughter, Jayme insisted she ride up the mountain with me and that I tell her a story on the way.

"And what would you like the story to be about?"

"A horse."

"Of, course. A horse and a girl?"

"Yes, a girl like me."

"What shall we name this girl?"

"Ummm, how about Miranda?"

"Okay. Miranda, a girl who wants a horse more than anything in the world?"

"Yes! Just like me."

The story unfolded out of my imagination, lift ride after lift ride and while warming our toes in the lodge until by the end of the day, I decided it was worth writing down. Five more books followed about Miranda's adventures with Starlight, the young, black stallion she loves.

I write stories based on situations I see in life, and the people who encounter them. The result is, though wholly made up, the books are honest -- honest because I ask my characters how they think, what they would say, and how they feel in the dilemmas presented to them. I write what they show me.

Jayme's situation, and thus Miranda's, involved living with her grandparents away from her mother, attending a small rural school in which she felt left out, and believing that having a horse would solve all of her problems...or at least make them matter less. Miranda is impulsive, quick-tempered, and sometimes disobedient. She is also loving, loyal, and learns from her mistakes.

I wrote Danny's Dragon based on the experiences of kids I heard about in the news and our neighborhood; kids whose parent or parents went off to fight a war, leaving them behind. I put myself in the child's heart and mind. A bit of homesickness I experienced at age nine helped me understand. The death of my parents gave me an inkling of what a child that age would go through. Research on the stages of grief for a child helped me better understand the impact and the stages of grief he would suffer. So I made up Danny and his horse Dragon and put them on a cattle ranch in Montana. Danny's dad goes to war and is killed. Dragon, the horse his dad bought for him, becomes the object of Danny's anger, guilt, denial, and escape. For a time he loses Dragon, too. His relationships with his mother and his teenage sister fall apart as each cope with their grief in their own ways. Life changes make Danny's life even harder, but gradually open his mind to new ideas and realities. End the end, relationships mend, Danny and Dragon are reunited, and Danny has grown from a lost little boy to a stronger, wiser, youth.

Kyleah's Tree is based loosely on my own run-away-from-home fantasies as a preteen. It's also a twin story. I see the closeness of twins and ask, :"what would it be like if they were tragically separated?" Kyleah ends up in a foster home in Kansas after her mother dies. She was torn from the arms of her twin brother when her parents divorced years earlier. The biggest dilemma for Kyleah is a lack of self-esteem. She doesn't believe she's loveable so she doesn't let anyone close. "If only I were pretty," she thinks, "then people could love me." This lack of belief in herself contributes to her decision to run away with an older boy from the same foster home. They travel across Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and into Saskatchewan with high adventure, narrow escapes, hardships, and loneliness along the way. Kyleah doesn't find her father and brother as she hopes, but she finds herself and what "home" really means.

Kendall's Storm explores the parallel life of Kyleah's twin as he flees one place after another with his errant father. He remembers his sister and wonders if she and his mother are alive, and if they ever think of him. A bedraggled puppy that he rescues from a storm becomes his friend and solace. Kendall is meek and fearful, wanting his father's love and acceptance, but often falling short of the mark. He must make decisions about his own life. Will he follow his father's footsteps? Will he conquer his fears? There is a foster home in his story, too, but a very different one from the one Kyleah fled and then returned to.

Not yet finished is the story of how the twins eventually unite. Several more stories are either written or in process. Homelessness, peer pressure, a two book series ritual abuse and escape to a fantasy world that turns out to be just as frightening, are a few of the subjects addressed.

I'm a grandmother, a wife, and a mother. Family is of primary importance to me. So is writing stories that reflect life and give readers heroic, yet human characters to relate to and learn from; books that not only engage the reader, but encourage and comfort them in the knowledge that they are neither bad nor alone.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Courtesy of Teens Read Too, August 10, 2009

By 

TeensReadToo "Eat. Drink. Read. Be Merrier." (All Over the US & Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kyleah's Tree (Perfect Paperback)

Kyleah's father and twin brother had just disappeared after their parents' divorce, and then her mother died. Kyleah's life in foster homes has been lonely and she feels great despair from the loss of her family. Now she climbs her favorite tree each morning just at sunrise, because she is sure that if she makes a wish just as the sun starts to appear over the horizon, and she keeps her eyes closed until the sun is in full view, her wishes will come true.

Her main wish is to find her father and brother again.

Kyleah doesn't really feel like she fits in with her foster family, and she and her foster brother, Benjamin, plot to run away. Benjamin has a family in Moose Jaw, just across the Canadian border, and since Kyleah came from Montana, she thinks she might find family members there.

The great escape is filled with suspense and emotion, and sometimes the adventure turns dangerous as they flee from Kansas to Canada, stowing away on vehicles or catching rides when they can. Kyleah and Benjamin sometimes contradict each other as they tell lies about who they are to keep from being caught by the authorities and sent back to the Holcomb farm.

This story addresses the emotional problems of being abandoned and living within the foster care system. It shows how a child might imagine threats that either don't exist or are misinterpreted, and might be tempted to take matters into their own hands.

Herb Leonhard's black-and-white illustrations add visual depth to the story. We have come to expect great characters from Janet Muirhead Hill, and Kyleah and Benjamin are impossible to forget. This great storyteller is a master at realistic, but nearly heart-stopping excitement, in a fast-moving plot with a satisfying ending.

Reviewed by: Grandma Bev

5.0 out of 5 stars A unique story of growing up done in a rarely before seen way, November 16, 2008

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kyleah's Tree (Perfect Paperback)

When nothing is going right, sometimes all you can do is run away. "Kyleah's Tree" is the tragic tale of one young Kyleah. Losing her brother, losing her father, losing her own personal place, she finds the only person to understand her in her foster brother. The two leave the serenity of Kansas on a long whirlwind journey that crosses international borders, learning that even when things are at their worst, love and respect can bring joy to one's heart. "Kyleah's Tree" is a unique story of growing up done in a rarely before seen way, greatly recommended to youth readers.