THE MULBERRY TREE

Villagers believe the huge tree dominating the back garden steals young girls, but Immy, 10, convinces her parents to rent Lavender Cottage anyway.

Immy’s family left Australia so her mother, a heart surgeon, could take a job in England. Immy knows clinical depression has left her general-practitioner father unable to work, but she finds it hard to be understanding when he loudly disparages village beliefs to local kids (including Caitlyn, whose parents own the cottage) and she’s hit with the angry backlash. Jean, an elderly neighbor, is concerned to learn Immy will soon turn 11; she too fears the tree was responsible for two girls’ disappearances—one was her best friend—on the eves of their 11th birthdays. While sensing the tree’s malevolence, Immy’s increasingly fascinated by it and the eerie rhymes she can’t get out of her head. At school she’s an outsider; at home, she’s increasingly impatient with her dad, whose depression continues. When his gardening efforts accidentally injure a mama hedgehog, Jean saves it and helps guide Immy to its hoglets. Although caring for the healing family brings Immy and her dad closer, the tree’s sullen anger only worsens, conveyed with delicate, measured effectiveness as Immy’s birthday approaches. These rounded, engaging characters (they default to white), compassionately drawn, lend depth to the spookily enjoyable plot.

Crafted from shivery supernatural elements, this fable celebrates the power of empathy and forgiveness.