Elk’s best friend Zeke did not come back. His older brother Elk has come back safely but changed from fighting in Afghanistan. Jules neighbor and best friend, Sam, is also coping with loss. Jules is not sure how she can go on without her sister. Sylvie drowns and her body was never sound. A tragic event hits this family yet again.

Since their mother’s death, their small, grieving family has relied on each other for strength and comfort. All she remembers was Sylvie running as fast as she could to find help, but no one would have been able to run fast enough. and Unlike her older sister Sylvie, Jules barely remembers their mom, who died of an undiagnosed heart condition. Sylvie and Jules mother died when her daughters were very young. I think it would lend itself to a read aloud. The writing is absolutely beautiful so I focused appreciating that. This is a sad little book, filled with poignancy, loss and some hope. Writing in alternate voices-one Jules’s, the other the fox’s-Kathi Appelt and Alison McGhee tell the searingly beautiful tale of one small family’s moment of heartbreak, a moment that unfolds into one that is epic, mythic, shimmering, and most of all, hopeful. And when Jules believes one last wish rock for Sylvie needs to be thrown into the river, the human and shadow worlds collide. She’s too young to know exactly what she senses, but she knows something is very wrong. She too is fast-faster than fast-and she senses danger. Jules is devastated, but she refuses to believe what all the others believe, that-like their mother-her sister is gone forever.Īt the very same time, in the shadow world, a shadow fox is born-half of the spirit world, half of the animal world. But Sylvie is too fast, and when she runs to the river they’re not supposed to go anywhere near to throw a wish rock just before the school bus comes on a snowy morning, she runs so fast that no one sees what happens…and no one ever sees her again.

And if only Sylvie wasn’t such a fast-faster than fast-runner. Better than just sisters, more than best friends, they’d be identical twins if only they’d been born in the same year. Worlds collide in a spectacular way when Newbery and National Book Award finalist Kathi Appelt and Pulitzer Prize nominee and #1 New York Times bestseller Alison McGhee team up to create a fantastical, heartbreaking, and gorgeous tale about two sisters, a fox cub, and what happens when one of the sisters disappears forever.

Maybe a fox by kathi appelt