Where I Belong — Mary Downing Hahn

BRENDAN is smart, a talented artist, and yet his teachers and classmates mock him, his foster mother is cold and critical, and he has become a target for bullies. Why should he struggle at school and at home when he knows he'll never measure up? It's far easier to retreat to his hidden treehouse in the woods, where he can be himself. The treehouse is Brendan's refuge, and the Green Man -- the spirit of the woods -- has appeared to him, offering protection.

When Brendan is brutally attacked, the world he created for himself is a refuge no longer. But now he's not alone. With new friends beside him, he can move into the real world, where he belongs at last.

In Where I Belong, master storyteller Mary Downing Hahn has crafted a compelling, realistic tale of fear and loneliness yielding to hope.