The Empty Place

A year after mysteriously vanishing into the woods near their home, white-cued Henrietta “Henry” Lightfoot’s explorer father unexpectedly returns on her 12th birthday. He claims to have “found the land of Truth” and gives her a strange map and silver necklace. Determined to understand his compulsive wanderlust and to find out more about where he disappeared to, Henry follows his footsteps into the forest. She soon falls into This Place, an alternate world filled with lost people, creatures, and objects—and quickly learns that there’s no guaranteed way home. Now Henry must retrace her dad’s travels in This Place if she hopes to recreate his miraculous escape. Accompanied by two fellow lost children, Henry delves into This Place’s increasingly hazardous nooks and crannies, uncovering mysteries and testing her own limits. In a dreamlike portal fantasy, Cole (Where the Lockwood Grows) examines the nature of home and what it means to be lost. Henry’s drive to be “not an earthworm anymore, but a butterfly” like her father is a powerful sentiment that thoughtfully coincides with further interpretations of how to respect one’s surroundings, even as one steps off the established path. Ages 8–12. Agent: Patrice Caldwell, New Leaf Literary. (Nov.)