The Grafted Branch: Book one

Some jobs are easy to say yes to. They're harder to actually keep doing. Eli Marsh is the third of six kids, in a house that runs on everyone doing their job. So when Dad's back takes him off ladder duty right before harvest, Eli says yes to the twice-daily walk-through Block C without thinking twice, checking every row for anything going wrong. Except eleven minutes, twice a day, quietly becomes four. Then two. Then a fast walk-by that isn't really checking anything, because it's easier to believe a problem you haven't found yet isn't really a problem. By the time something's actually wrong with tree nineteen, it's been wrong for weeks. And with the Harvest Festival bearing down and the family's spot at the market on the line, Eli has to learn the hardest thing an eleven-year-old ever learns: the fix for a mistake this size isn't hiding it better. It's telling someone, before it grows any further. A story about big families, small chores that turn out to matter more than anyone expects, and the particular courage it takes to say the true thing out loud, The Grafted Branch is for readers 9-14 who love stories where growing up means growing honest.