Alison McGhee is the New York Times bestselling author of books for all ages in all forms, including What I Leave Behind, Shadow Baby, Firefly Hollow, and Someday. She is the recipient of many awards and grants, including the Geisel Medal, the Christopher Award, four Minnesota Book awards, and Minnesota State Arts Board and McKnight Foundation grants. Her work has been translated into more than twenty languages. She grew up in upstate New York and lives in Minneapolis.
"""Inspired by Itaru Sasaki’s phone booth in Japan, where people can symbolically call deceased loved ones, McGhee lays bare the powerful emotions entangled with loss while demonstrating the strength found in community."" —Booklist ""McGhee injects a speculative twist to this tender tale about death and grief. Employing spare, sensory language, McGhee explores the painful negative space created by loss and the devastation of a friendship cutshort, as well as the healing found in moving forward while remembering that 'there’s more... so much more.'"" —Publishers Weekly ★ “Rather than trot in a therapist or some other mouthpiece for wise counseling, the author gives her protagonist subtler (and more believably effective) help reaching that insight—most notably parents who give her space rather than unwanted advice, and her grandfather’s old telephone. Readers feeling Ayla’s profound sense of loss will be relieved when she finds a way to live with it. Raw and sad but lit with occasional glints of humor and ending, as it should, on a rising note."" —Kirkus, starred review"