Wild Everywhere

By: Katya Balen

Published by Candlewick Press, 2025-07-22

In a poetic, beautifully illustrated story, a child's move to a big city has her mourning her connection with nature until she makes a serendipitous discovery.

When I shout my name into the sky, nobody answers.
The city is lonely and so am I.
I've lost my wild.

In the woods, the girl finds wildness all around her--when she climbs toward the sky and shouts her name into the air, a bird sings back to her. She finds secrets in the stars and stories in the earth. But when her family leaves wildness behind, she sees only towering gray-glass buildings, taller than trees, nothing she can climb. It's not possible to find the stars, and the moon hangs all alone. She feels bereft--until a bird calls to her from the sky, and following its path through the city streets to the river leads to natural sights that take her breath away. With gorgeous prose from Katya Balen and atmospheric artwork from Gill Smith, this tale of the wondrous ability of nature to prevail shows that wildness never leaves those who cherish it.