MEET ME AT THE MOON TREE

A warm-hearted middle grade novel about a girl who is determined to find a way to speak with her father who has passed away.

For ten-year-old Carina, there is nothing more magical than a moon tree a tree grown from the seeds taken on the 1971 Apollo mission to the moon. Her father taught her everything she knows about them. Her father, who passed away before they had a chance to search for one together.

Since then, Carina's family has been struggling to find a new equilibrium, each of them grieving in ways the others don't understand. For Carina, her grief manifests as an all-consuming obsession with moon trees; so when Mum relocates the family to a small town in the Otways National Park, Carina becomes determined to find a moon tree in the forest behind her new house.

And she does. Believing that the moon tree's magic will allow her to talk to her dad, she leaves a letter, telling him how much she misses him, asking his advice on how to keep her family from falling apart completely.

Then, one day, she receives a reply.

Shivaun Plozza is an award-winning author of books for children and young adults from Geelong, Victoria. Her debut novel, Frankie, was a CBCA Notable Book and won a number of awards, including the Davitt Awards and a commendation from the Victorian Premier's Literary Award. Her second novel, Tin Heart, sold in four foreign territories, received two starred reviews, and was nominated to ALA'S Best Fiction for Young Adults list. Her debut middle-grade novel, The Boy, the Wolf, and the Stars, was released in late 2020 in Australia and the US; a Russian edition will be released soon. A Reluctant Witch's Guide to Magic is forthcoming in July 2022 from Clarion Books and Penguin Random House Australia. She is a frequent contributor to anthologies, and when she is not writing she works as an editor and manuscript assessor.