Hannah May always takes the long way home.
She is the kind of girl who stops to watch a beetle cross the path, who knows which trees have the best climbing branches, and who never quite fits the way the other children seem to. She still sees the magic in the world, even when everyone around her has stopped looking for it.
But one autumn afternoon, the woods behind her house go strangely quiet, and strangely green, and a flash of orange darts between the trees. Hannah May, who never can leave a wonderful thing alone, follows it right off the path. And when she does, everything changes. She turns into a small orange cat, with no way to turn back and no way home.
Lost in the great dark woods as the light begins to fade, Hannah May has only one hope: a big old house at the edge of the trees, where the windows glow warm all night long. Inside lives a kind woman named Miss Opal, and a whole houseful of cats who were each, once, a child just like her. At Opal Manor, no one is the only one. There is a place by the fire for everyone, a saucer of warm milk, and a family waiting for a girl who was never quite sure she had one.
The Long Way Home is a gentle, glowing chapter book about getting lost, being braver than you knew, and finding the place, and the people, where you truly belong. Perfect for children ages 7 to 9, for newly independent readers, and for grown-ups reading aloud at bedtime, it is the first book in The Cats of Opal Manor, a cozy and magical series for every quiet, curious child who ever felt like the only one.
The cat on the cover was drawn by the author's young niece, and the whole story began with her picture of a cat named Ripley.