The Giant Forest Read online

  Bill & Mia Belew

  The Giant Forest

  Chapter Book for Parents and Grandparents of Preteens Who Love to Read

  Copyright © 2019 by Bill & Mia Belew

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  Bill & Mia Belew asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  Bill & Mia Belew has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

  Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book and on its cover are trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publishers and the book are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within the book have endorsed the book.

  Second edition

  This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy

  Find out more at reedsy.com

  Contents

  Foreword

  Acknowledgement

  Thank You Gift from Mia & Dad

  1. Feeling Betrayed by Dad

  2. Lots of Questions for God

  3. Selfish or Selfless

  4. We Don’t Even Know Her Real Name

  5. Brute Friendship

  6. Getting Lost One Step at a Time

  7. Getting Lost One Crumb at a Time

  8. Getting Lost One Giant Leap at a Time

  9. Very Good at Being Very Bad

  10. History Introduces Itself

  11. Swallow or Be Gobbled Up

  12. When Your Best is Not Enough, Sometimes You Die

  13. Opportunity Comes Knocking

  14. Stink Up the Place

  15. Deer, er, Train in the Headlights

  16. Going Over the Edge

  17. Slow and Stupid Are Not the Same

  18. Be Careful What You Hope For

  19. Destroyer or Savior or Both

  20. Small Talk Looms Large

  21. Why The Giants Ran

  22. Stink, Stank, Really Stunk

  23. Back from the Dead, Sorta

  24. Big Changes Come in Small Packages

  25. If Dogs Could Smile

  26. If Butterflies Could Talk

  27. If Bugs Didn’t Bite

  28. Doing Something is Better than Doing Nothing

  29. In a Tight Spot

  30. When Your Kids Let You Down

  31. Making Enemies My Friends

  32. Read, er, Follow the Directions If You Can

  33. Pride Goes Before the Find

  34. Sometimes Hate is Greater than Love

  35. Digging Yourself Out of a Hole

  36. Losing Somebody You Love Without Trying

  37. Feeling Left Out

  38. Keeping Secrets from Those Closest to You

  39. Getting Left Behind

  40. Scarier Than an Injured Bear

  41. All Hail to Ceasar

  42. Making a Near Impossible Choice

  43. Animals Are Like T-shirts

  44. First You Have to Give Up

  45. True Friends Stick Closer than Family

  46. The Battle Was Over Before It Started

  47. Where Help Comes From

  48. Friends Come in All Flavors

  Afterword

  The Giant Forest - Bonus Chapter

  The Making of the Giant Forest

  Alternate Ending - Friends Come in All Flavors

  How the Endings are Different

  Who Did the Illustrations?

  Welcome to The Heliuna Academy, Chapter 1.

  Invitation to Connect

  Before You Go

  About the Author

  Foreword

  My 11-yo daughter, Mia, and I started off writing this book primarily because she ran out of new things to read. I noticed that she was re-reading chapter books that she enjoyed by authors she loves - Rick Riordan, Shannon Messenger …

  I proposed that she and I write something of our own. Though she loves fantasy (who doesn’t, right?) I suggested we write a book that is true to life, believable on all fronts. I wanted to see if we could write something that didn’t involve mythical creatures, time warps and magic. I wanted to see if we could get by with good storytelling.

  I wanted the story to be firstly enjoyable for ‘tweens. I also wanted the subject, the struggle, the adventure to be something that preteens could identify with. My daughter can read at a much higher level, but imho, the content might still be too mature for her. This book is the product of our first effort to get a novel on the shelf for kids who love to read and can’t find something challenging that isn’t too mature.

  The book was first meant to be read alone. Isn’t that what we want to do? Escape into a book, get away to be by ourselves, hang out with ‘friends’ on the pages before us?

  Then it occurred to me that the book could also be read as part of a reading group. The topics the book touch on are, imho, worthy to be discussed among friends. I am pretty sure young people talk about these things anyway - betrayal, neglect, prejudice, overbearing parents. And those that don’t probably want to. As a result, I went back and added three discussions to the end of each chapter as starters.

  It also occurred to me that parents could read along with their children chapter by chapter and pause at times to look at the questions at the end of each chapter and have a talk. Why not?

  One last but not least thing. Our family makes no apologies for being Christian. Which I hasten to say does NOT make us a perfect family. Boy are we not perfect. But we do love the Bible and the lessons it teaches us about life. Those lessons inform us and direct us and have seeped into this book not because that is what we hoped to teach in some sly way. It is just who we are.

  If you read this book and go away with a “that was a fun story” and nothing else. Well then, that’s okay with us. It’s okay to just have fun. If, however, you find yourself thinking heavy thoughts, and find yourself having an appreciation for the friends you have in life that are closer than a family, well, then … that’s okay, too.

  Thanks for picking up this book. We hope you enjoy the time you spend with us.

  Happy reading!

  Acknowledgement

  There are 4 people, make that 5 that I want to thank. Three of them are Mia’s classmates - Stuart, Ariel and Grace. They have faithfully read the early drafts and provided invaluable feedback.

  The fourth person is older than my daughter’s entire 6th grade class combined. With age comes experience and insight. Rick Deutsch provided both with his invaluable feedback after reading the first draft in full and providing feedback on my story.

  The last is my older son, affectionately called George, who did the cover work and all the chapter header illustrations.

  Thank You Gift from Mia & Dad

  Thank you for reading The Giant Forest.

  We have something for you.

  FREE GIFT at The fiction Aimi Wilby here in The Giant Forest has written two prequels to the Growing Up Aimi Series.

  Please download one of them here.
  Please download one of them here.
  Best Practices for Sharing with Young People

  I recommend that parents read the book together with their children but you don’t need to.

  No. Parents and children don’t need to sit next to each other and read out loud. However, while your son or daughter is reading a chapter, you the parent can be doing the same. When it’s dinner time, the story becomes the discussion point … as well as what is going on in the kids’ lives.

  Parents will find out what is happening in their children’s lives without asking. Kids will learn to share as deeply as their parents share also.

  Mia’s Favorite Question for Me

  One of Mia’s favorite questions for me is, “Tell me a time when you got in trouble.” Or some variation of that. I should write a book. Oh, wait! I did. Just not the book about how I got in trouble … yet.

  I think it was Teddy Roosevelt who said he discovered the secret to getting his kids to listen to him. “Find out what they want to do and tell them to do that.”

  A corollary perhaps. If you want to spend time with your kids, find out what they want to do and do that with them.

  If you want to have good talks for a very long time with your kids, start when they are young.

  Start by listening. Then talking, reading, asking, sharing … and end by listening again. Really listening.

  Please download one of them here.
  One

  Feeling Betrayed by Dad

  Aimi Ponders the Week Ahead

  Aimi’s dad had never been this wrong before. Her dad promised her that she would be okay. “Nothing could possibly go wrong at church camp,” he had told her. Her dad al
so ALWAYS kept his promises … until now.

  “Kids have been going to camp here at Mt. Hermon for more than 50 years. Mt. Hermon is one of the safest and most fun places around. The worst thing that ever happens is someone gets a rash, a scratch, cut or a broken bone.”

  This year’s camp experience was going to be like something even her dad could not have anticipated.

  Aimi’s dad was different from her friends’ dads. Aimi teased him, “Were you here when Mt. Hermon was created during the 49er Gold Rush?”

  “No. But my grandpa …” her dad ping ponged back with a story.

  Aimi’s dad was old enough to be any of her classmates’ grandfathers!

  “How come your dad is so old, Aimi?” her friends would ask only half kidding her.

  “I dunno. How come your dads are so young?” Aimi would retort. Aimi didn’t allow the joshing of others to get to her easily. Young as she was, Aimi could get almost direct wisdom from three different centuries. She was born in the Internet Age of the 2000s; her dad was born in the industrial age of the 1900s. Her dad had sat on the lap of his grandparents who were born in the 1800s, the immediate post Civil War age. When Aimi heard her dad start up, “My grandpa used to say …” she knew she might be hearing something from the time Mount Hermon was built.

  “My dad’s been around long enough to raise kids that are older than your parents. He most probably ain’t right all the time, but he’s definitely experienced more than your dads have.” Aimi never said that last part out loud.

  Aimi had two big brothers who were older than some of her friends’ dads. She didn’t mind at all having a grandpa for a dad. Or was it the other way around.

  Aimi stopped listening to her dad after she heard the word fun. After all, she was really hoping to meet some new people, some more people like her. Some people that she could bond with. Aimi had become pretty good at making friends in new places. A couple of summers ago it seemed she went to a different camp or VBS (Vacation Bible School) every week. “No worries,” she’d say. “I’ll look for someone else standing around by themselves and strike up a conversation. They probably want a friend, too.”

  Her old daddy taught her that trick.

  “You can be pretty sure that in any large group there is another person feeling the same as you - even feeling out of place or alone. Find that person.” Aimi tried and was usually successful. Aimi learned to not be afraid of new situations. Her experience this year at camp, however, was going to thrust her into a new circumstance she had never experienced before.

  “Why didn’t dad tell me something like this might happen?” she would ask herself over and over again.

  Aimi loved to read. She could read a chapter book of five, six or 700 pages in a weekend. Sometimes she could read the whole book on a long Saturday. She would only stop to munch lunch. And she only stopped because her mom wouldn’t let her read and eat at the same time. Her dad didn’t mind. He would read and eat at the same time, too. Her favorite books were fantasy. She especially liked it when characters crossed over from one story into another. It never occurred to her that she might mysteriously cross over into another story.

  Fantasy characters would go on adventures to find treasures, slay dragons, discover hidden truths. It never occurred to Aimi that fantasy characters might enjoy reading books about the adventures of real boys and girls. Aimi liked reading about Princess Belle. She started wondering what it was that Princess Belle liked to read about. “What’s so interesting about my life?” Aimi pondered. Aimi’s thinking changed after her first year at church camp. Mt Hermon has a way of making you reevaluate the way you see and experience life.

  Aimi was the tallest girl in her class. She might have been the biggest kid in her entire school. She never worried about being big. She loved to skip, jump, climb, hop, kick and run at will. And she did often. She liked to pretend she was a ninja in a sports competition. She even realized she probably could become a ninja if she practiced enough.

  Aimi’s long pitch black hair faded from dark brown to medium brown, dirty blonde and finally bleached tips as a result of her twice weekly swim sessions. She liked to cut it short then let it grow down over her shoulders. Aimi realized her hair was just long enough to touch her shoulders as she looked out the window in a daydream-like daze on the drive to Mt Hermon. “Maybe I should get my hair cut,” she mumbled.

  “Huh?” her dad asked.

  She didn’t bother to respond and he didn’t ask again.

  On the daily camp schedule on their website there was pool time and beach time. Aimi dreamed of swimming at camp, in the pool and at the beach.

  “Aimi? Do you know how to tell when we are almost there?”

  “Yeah, dad.” she moaned. “We start making stops and turns more often.”

  “We’re here!” Daddy shouted in his usual goofy upbeat way.

  Even silliness can be reassuring when it comes from someone you love and you know loves you.

  Aimi never doubted her daddy’s love … until this Mt Hermon experience.

  ============================

  Discussion Questions

  Have you ever felt betrayed by someone you really trust?

  Have you every betrayed someone that trusted you?

  Who do you consider the most reliable person that you know?

  Two

  Lots of Questions for God

  Roci Has Questions for God

  Roci wanted to go to camp. Unlike her good friend, Aimi, she didn’t ask her mom or dad for reassurances about Mt Hermon camp. Roci was happy to just get away from home and her loud, whiny, demanding little brother.

  “Of course, my mom and dad love me,” Roci confided to her friend, Aimi. Even so, she dreamed of the possibilities and desperately wanted to spend some time away from home - do a sleepover, maybe. A week of camp seemed like it would be a glorious enough adventure all its own - just being away from home, on her own, hanging out with friends, talking about boys, singing, studying, crafts, sports, rope-courses, hiking … and new friends! All this sounded like a great way to spend a week of her summer school vacation.

  Roci was so good at her school work that all of her classmates gave up trying to catch up with her. Her parents, especially her mom, made sure of that she always scored number one on her tests - math, spelling, science. Roci was a whiz when it came to courses that required using her memory. She pretended to be very creative, but it wasn’t her strength. Her classmates competed for 2nd spot on the grade charts. Top spot belonged to Roci. She could also run faster than nearly all the boys in her class. Sometimes when Aimi tried hard she could beat Roci. Aimi knew how important it was to Roci for her to be number one, so Aimi didn’t mind not trying hard. She didn’t let Roci win. Winning wasn’t as important to Aimi as it was to Roci, or in this case Roci’s mom.