SPROUT

With a secret budding just beneath the surface, a 13-year-old girl in a Massachusetts mill town learns that what sets her apart may be her greatest strength.

Sprout is sick of being home-schooled; she feels isolated and friendless. She wants to go to a real middle school, but there’s one problem: She has no control over the growths that shoot out of the top of her head—“something between a bony growth and a floral branch”—which she calls her “plantlers.” Keeping them trimmed (ouch!) and hidden under a hat works for the most part, but when her emotions take over, they bloom. When Sprout accidentally reveals her plantlers to E.B., the rich boy she meets in their therapist’s waiting room, the two strike up an unlikely friendship. Soon they’re chasing unsettling rumors about a girl spotted in the woods with antlers growing from her head. Could there be someone else out there like Sprout? E.B. and Sprout embark on a harrowing journey through Ichabod Woods to try and find her. From hidden rooms in E.B.’s family mansion that are packed with antique weapons and coded maps, to a pursuit by Sprout’s estranged father and a pair of menacing twins and even a tense escape from an asylum, this twisty mystery story brims with whimsy and charm but ultimately tries to juggle too many plot threads at once. Characters read white.

A quirky adventure that’s sprouting with self-discovery.