Whispering Alaska

Brendan Jones's Whispering Alaska is a big-hearted family story for 10 year olds about twin sisters starting again on an island full of very old trees.

What happens

Nicky and Josie are twelve. They're "mirror twins", which means Josie writes with her right hand and Nicky with her left. Even their hearts sit on opposite sides.

Their mum died four months ago. She was an emergency doctor and she caught Covid at work. So Dad has driven them right across America in a scruffy camper van, and now they're on the ferry north to a little town in Alaska where Dad's sister lives.

Dad tells awful fish jokes and tries SO hard. Josie has dyed her hair green, gone vegetarian and decided she hates all of it. Nicky mostly keeps quiet and watches the water.

It's worth knowing that the grief is right there from the first chapter. There are memories of Mum behind the glass in intensive care, and a family still wearing masks and scared of the virus. None of that is scary, but a child who has lost someone might find it very close to home. For a reader who likes a story that takes feelings seriously, it's gentle and very honest.

Nicky's side of things is where the magic is. She's the dreamy twin. Back home she could hear beech saplings whispering and feel a hum in the ground through her bare feet (she's never told anyone). On the ferry she spots a humpback whale and her calf and feels all that wildness under the boat.

Then a man in a yellow rain hat, with a cat called Rooster, tells her about a yellow cedar behind the town. It might be a thousand years old. His brother wants to cut the whole valley down, and her new uncle runs the logging crew. So what happens when a girl who can hear trees lands in the middle of that?

If your reader loves nature, animals and a family story with a fight over some very old trees in it, this is a lovely one. The sisters bicker all the way north, and anyone with a brother or sister will recognise it.

What to read next

For another pair of siblings who feel the wild calling louder than the rules, try Where the World Turns Wild, where plants and animals have been banned from Juniper's city altogether.