The Girl with the Telescope Heart

An illustrated middle grade novel full of (telescope) heart and magic, about a girl intent on saving her parents from the queen’s cruelty, no matter the cost.

Badger Barlowe lives with her parents in the Timewood—a beautiful glass forest whose trees, heavy with ticking clocks, constantly change position. But the Timewood is a prison, a punishment for a crime Badger’s parents committed before she was born. The terms of their imprisonment—according to the tyrannical Queen of Nearby—are as follows:

First, they must polish the clocks from dawn until dusk every day.

And second, every year, parts of their bodies, and their descendants’ bodies, must be stolen away and replaced with useless, ordinary objects.

Which is why, on Badger’s twelfth birthday, her heart is taken and replaced with a telescope. And yet, in spite of their sentence, the Barlowes live a relatively happy life. Until her parents are accused of treason and carted off for questioning. Until Badger finds out that her parents are spies who belong to the resistance intent on overthrowing the queen. Badger has heard enough about the queen to know that she does not deal fairly with traitors. And so Badger takes it upon herself to rescue her mother and father. But secrets lurk in the dark corners of time and space. Soon, Badger must learn to trust her telescope heart in order to save her parents—and the world she has come to love.

With over thirty-five striking illustrations from Mira Miraslavova woven into Hayley Chewins's lyrical text, The Girl with the Telescope Heart is a tender story about love and what we're willing to do to save it.