Call before you come.

Just give a quick holler to say you’re on your way and let us know to look for you at the front door. You got the digits, right? Yeah, texting might be faster but whatever — just call before you leave. As in the new book “Telephone of the Tree” by Alison McGhee, the sound of your voice is all that’s needed.

Ayla and Kiri had been best friends since they were babies. Ayla’s father and Kiri’s mother were dancing their babies in the moonlight to get them to sleep, and that was that, forever.

For sure, Kiri and Ayla are “tree people.” Up and down their street are trees that mark the birth of babies in the neighborhood, or to remember people. Kiri’s tree is a pine; Ayla’s is a birch and they like “treeing” together. They always know what the other one is thinking. They even have a secret code in their trees.

Kiri will be eleven years old at the end of August and Ayla is sure Kiri will be home by then. She’s planning on it; she’s even got their lucky birthday candle ready. Yep, Kiri is returning, and Ayla waits, saying lalalala softly to herself so she doesn’t have to think.

Funny thing: one morning, Ayla looked out her bedroom window and she noticed something that wasn’t there before: a dial-up telephone like her grandma once had, nestled in her birch tree, and Ayla didn’t know where it came from. Whatever. When the five-year-old from across the street told her that his gecko died, Ayla lied and said he could talk to Sweetheart on that phone. She watched him then, and she saw that he wasn’t sad anymore. The same thing happened to everyone who stopped at Ayla’s tree to talk on the telephone to people they lost, saying things they didn’t get to say.

Ayla wishes she could talk to Kiri.

It will be Kiri’s birthday at the end of August, but Ayla is not going to touch that phone…

You know what’s coming, don’t you? And you’d like to protect your child from it but don’t. “Telephone of the Tree” is too beautiful a book to miss.

Pure friendship and love flow between the pages of this short story, right alongside a wistful joy that speaks of those moments with a BFF that you know you’ll cherish until you’re both old and gray. Author Alison McGhee lets readers steep in this feeling awhile, setting loaded scenes of school, secret codes, and summer vacation that will be familiar for her target audience and to any parents reading along. But don’t get too comfortable: before long, McGhee starts the slow descent into the heart(break) of the tale and the reasons for the somberness.

For an adult, this is a book that begs a kid to stay a kid, while acknowledging that doing so isn’t possible sometimes. For your 8-to-12-year-old, though, “Telephone of the Tree” is a story they’ll dial into and pass around because this book’s got their number.

By Terri Schlichenemyer

“Telephone of the Tree” by Alison McGhee
c.2024, Rocky Pond / Penguin Kids
$17.99
208 pages