This was a good book to start the new year. It's really a quiet story about a family and grief. Jules and Sylvie are sisters who already lost their mother and Jules already feels a little at a loss about that grief since she herself doesn't remember her mother that well. Then Sylvie herself disappears she isn't sure what to do. The girls' best friend, Sam, has a brother who recently returned from Afghanistan without his own best friend. So Jules and Elk are wandering around in their own grief. Unbeknownst to them there are two special animals following them in the woods, there to help.

I liked, btw, the way that poor Sam's thankless role is a realistic one. He himself is aware that although he misses Sylvie and Elk's friend Zeke too, there's no room for him to feel much sandwiched between the more overwhelming and selfish grief of the other two.