The Wrong Way Home
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  • Published: 24 June 2025
  • ISBN: 9780593650769
  • Imprint: RHUS Children's Books
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 352
  • RRP: $17.99

The Wrong Way Home

(Newbery Honor Award Winner)

Formats & editions
Paperback
24 Jun 2025
Hardback
16 Jul 2024
EBook
2 Apr 2024
Audiobook
2 Apr 2024
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Twelve-year-old Fern believes she's living a noble life--but what if everything she's been told is a lie?  This is a huge-hearted story about a girl learning to question everything—and to trust in herself.

Twelve-year-old Fern believes she's living a noble life--but what if everything she's been told is a lie?  This is a huge-hearted story about a girl learning to question everything—and to trust in herself.

Fern’s lived at the Ranch, an off-the-grid, sustainable community in upstate New York, since she was six. The work is hard, but Fern admires the Ranch's leader, Dr. Ben. So when Fern’s mother sneaks them away in the middle of the night and says Dr. Ben is dangerous, Fern doesn't believe it. She wants desperately to go back, but her mom just keeps driving.

Suddenly thrust into the treacherous, toxic, outside world, Fern can think only of how to get home. She has a plan, but it will take time. As that time goes by, though, Fern realizes there are things she will miss from this place—the library, a friend from school, the ocean—and there are things she learned at the Ranch that are just...not true.

Now Fern will have to decide. How much is she willing to give up to return to the Ranch? Should she trust Dr. Ben’s vision for her life? Or listen to the growing feeling that she can live by her own rules?
  • Published: 24 June 2025
  • ISBN: 9780593650769
  • Imprint: RHUS Children's Books
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 352
  • RRP: $17.99
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Praise for The Wrong Way Home

Advance praise for The Wrong Way Home:
"Gripping. A strong, emotionally intelligent story." — Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“O’Shaughnessy’s gift is an innate understanding of the inner life of twelve-year-olds.” —Gennifer Choldenko, Newbery Honor Winner for Al Capone Does My Shirts


“To leave behind a world that seems totally secure and safe and comfortable, for a world in which you make your own decisions and claim your own life—that is one of our great journeys.  In The Wrong Way Home, Fern has to battle her own fear, elaborate illusions, misunderstandings, and the past mistakes of others to get on with that journey—and, dear reader, you will not be able to turn the pages fast enough to see if she makes it.  Plan on reading this in one sitting; matters of the human soul don't bear interruption.” —Gary D. Schmidt, Newbery Honor Winner for The Wednesday Wars

“This story shines bright in its exploration of identity, family, and community. Readers will cheer for Fern as she finds the courage to confront the troubling doctrines she has been raised with and reinvent her ideas of home.” —Jacquetta Nammar Feldman, author of Wishing Upon the Same Stars and The Puttermans Are in the House