The Wild Journey of Juniper Berry Author Interview and Review

ABOUT THE BOOK

Eleven-year-old Juniper Berry lives with her family deep in the wild woods. Living off the grid is pretty exciting, but her happy life in the wild ends abruptly when her younger brother gets sick, and they move to the city to be closer to the hospital. Juniper and her older sister end up living with cousins they hardly know and attending public school for the first time, which is harder to navigate than the wild woods ever were. Juniper feels like a wolf cub separated from her pack.

As the hospital bills for her brother start piling up, Juniper knows they’ll need to be paid before the family can go back to the woods, so she decides to make enough money to help out. With her cousin Alayna’s support, Juniper starts posting videos filled with her wisdom from the woods, hoping to get a following. But what if it doesn’t work? What if the bills never get paid? Not going home to the wild is Juniper’s worst nightmare. While she’s stuck in the city, she might as well make the most of it, like sticking up for Alayna, who’s being bullied by her supposed friends, for starters.

The Wild Journey of Juniper Berry is a story about perseverance when faced with difficult and unfamiliar challenges, belonging and finding your identity, compassion for others, and learning that our differences can sometimes be our strengths.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

SHELLY BROWN went to junior high in a regular ol’ building (boring) and has never transformed into a round fuzzy animal. But she has been listening to K-pop since before BTS’s first album and feels a deep affection for well-made falafel pitas. She’s an aunt to some incredible young people, a substitute teacher, and a wannabe Kyoshi warrior.

CHAD MORRIS loves the VR set he got for Christmas and is much better at it than he is at video games, but that’s still not saying much. Still he would love to try to keep his balance on Skatecoaster, laugh like crazy in The Furriest, and punch light blasts at alien bugs in Infestation ExtermiNation. He occasionally dances in public, and he’s pretty terrible at social media.

As a married couple, Chad and Shelly both love writing books and hanging out with each other and their five kids. They’re grateful they get to spend time with students in assemblies across the nation talking about topics from kindness to writing.

AUTHOR INTERVIEW WITH CHAD AND SHELLY MORRIS

Life Is What It's Called - The Wild Journey of Juniper Berry and Virtually Me share similar themes about being yourself. Why do you think this theme is important for middle grade readers? Do any of your other books have a similar theme?

Shelly: The middle grades were rough for me and I think a lot of other people too. We try so hard to fit in and we seldom do. At least not as well as we'd like. But as we get older, we realize that there was nothing wrong with us in the first place. I would just love to get that message to kids as early as possible. You're cool. Shelly Brown thinks you're cool just the way you are. You'll figure it out eventually but until then feel free to lean on my faith in you.

Squint for sure also addresses this theme head on. The other books are a little different.

Life Is What It's Called - What makes The Wild Journey of Juniper Berry a "must" read for middle grade readers?

Chad: We’re really excited for it. It’s the story of Juniper Berry, a girl who grows up in the woods totally off the grid. She knows how to make fish traps, avoid bears, and shoot a bow and arrow, but when her brother gets sick and they have to come live in society, she has to use all her skills to survive the scariest thing of all….MIDDLE SCHOOL!

I love a lot of things about the story. I love the Juni knows who she is. She knows she’s amazing, and she doesn’t understand why she would do things just to fit in. She doesn’t understand all the rules and calls people out on mean things they do. But she’s up against some crazy odds and high stakes, and has a lot to learn and a lot of give.


Life Is What It's Called - How does The Wild Journey of Juniper Berry stand apart from the other middle grade books on the market?

Shelly: Juniper Berry is a character unlike anything you will probably ever read. She's so funny, and so confident, and so adventurous. And her sense of wonder at a world that most readers will find very commonplace is a joy. Like she’s fascinated with fridges and laundry boxes (washers). It's fun to explore a world most of us will never really know (living in the solitary woods) and a world we know too well (society) through the eyes of someone who has never experienced any of it before.

Life Is What It's Called - What was your favorite scene to write?

Chad: There is one scene where Juniper meets her cousins for the first time and is going to stay with them. And for reasons that will make more sense in the book, her cousin in on her phone and Juni is holding a bow and arrow and a goose. Her cousins thinks Juni is weird because she doesn’t know what a fridge is. Juni thinks her cousin is weird because she calls the goose a duck. And then things just get crazier from there. The dynamic between them was really fun to write. And it continues for chapters.

Life Is What It's Called - What are the benefits to co-authoring, and how did those benefits help you to write The Wild Journey of Juniper Berry?

Shelly: Chad brings his strengths (pacing and humor) and I bring mine (character and theme) and we always have a better story because of it.

Life Is What It's Called - Do you see continuing Juniper Berry as a series?

Chad: It was designed as a standalone, but we do have an idea for a sequel. We’ll have to see if that’s a project we focus on in the future or not.

Life Is What It's Called - What writing projects are you working on right now?

Shelly: Super-secret stuff 😉 Just kidding, kind of. We just got the green light for two more books. We’ll be doing another contemporary, and something entirely new. What are they about? That's the secret 🤫

Life Is What It's Called - How do you see this book being used in the classroom?

Chad: I think Juniper would be a great read-aloud. It’s fun and adventurous. It had super interesting stuff about living off the grid, but also moments where Juniper gets curious about how certain things work, like a fridge and a stove, and people who use them every day don’t know. And kids might get curious too. Plus, there’s a goose named Zombie who wears a sweater. (Again, it makes more sense in the book.) But then there are some real powerful scenes about being true to yourself, standing up for others, and truly helping even when it’s extremely hard.

Life Is What It's Called - What do you want readers to know about you as an author?

Shelly: That we're awesome and they should buy all our books. 😂🤣😂🤣 We are husband-wife writing team that works really hard on each of our books. We really try to make them worth reading. And we love readers!!!! We have 5 children, 4 chickens, 3 TVs, 2 of us, and one computer that we share.

Just kidding about the computer part.

REVIEW

Juniper Berry, the main character in The Wild Journey of Juniper Berry, lives off the grid in the wilderness with her family. She knows how to hunt, forage for food, and has many survival skills. When her brother gets sick, her family goes to stay with family that live in the city. For the first time in her life, Juniper goes to public school and faces society. 

I love the storytelling and the many different themes in this book. It's a great book for a class discussion, book project,or just to read for fun. The authors dive into themes of being true to yourself, not judging others based on their experiences, going out of your comfort zone, ways technology and society are harmful, good in society, healing family wounds, and many more. The themes were age appropriate and themes that I love my kids to take-in before approaching middle-school. I loved that this book offered so much and also had rich storytelling. You come to understand the characters and feel for their ups and downs. Overall, I was very pleased with this book. It's a book that my kids will enjoy and love. I would like to see a sequel from this book. To learn more, click here.

Please note that I received a free copy of this book to review, however, this is my honest opinion. This post contains affiliate links that help support this blog.