
Just one tree remains,
a hope, a haven,
best place to leave a message.
Nyx wants to stay! She doesn’t care that rising sea levels threaten Tasmania, or that Dad wants to move to the Northland, or that solar radiation means no food can grow here. She escapes to the only tree left, pours her rage and sadness into the only scrap of paper she has left, and puts it in the knothole.
Bea wants to stay! She doesn’t think she’ll be less-bullied at school for her glasses and hearing loss if they move from Tasmania to Australia. Escaping to her favorite tree which never judges her, she pulls her notebook from the knothole and finds a scrap of paper with a message! So Bea writes back to the girl who also wants to stay here…
The next day, Nyx finds a book filled with blank pages of real paper in the tree – and a message from another girl who doesn’t want to move away from their island – so she writes back.
As the two tweens exchange messages via their Mailbox Tree, they realize that they live in the same place, but not the same time!
Nyx asks Bea to plant trees all around, hoping that some will survive the 50 years between their times. The trees appear overnight in Nyx’s neighborhood – a miracle?!
But Nyx also faces bushfires and storms and no electricity and no drinking water and no food supplies…
Can Bea do anything to help her friend fifty years away survive?
What place would be safe from natural and climate disasters for such a long time?
Will anyone believe Bea’s story about the Mailbox Tree and what they must do, quickly?
Told in alternating chapters by authors in Tasmania and Australia (“the Northland”), who have never met in real life either!
What message would you send back to our past?
**kmm
Book info: The Mailbox Tree / Rebecca Lim & Kate Gordon. Walker Books Australia, 2024. [Rebecca’s site https://annabelbarker.com/rebecca-lim] [Kate’s site https://kategordon.com.au/bio/] [US publisher site https://lernerbooks.com/shop/show/24700] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher via Publisher Spotlight.