"Award-winning author of A Boy Called Bat"--Dust jacket.

Alder has always lived in his cozy little house in Southern California. An old, reliable, comforting walnut tree has stood between his house and the one next door. When a new family--with a particularly annoying girl his age named Oak--moves into the neighboring house, they cut the tree down. As Oak and Alder start school together, they can't imagine ever becoming friends. But they soon discover a series of mysterious, possibly magical, connections between the two of them.