It’s impossible not to be moved’ Stephen King’Stunning…this novel will break your heart and fire up your courage’ Mail on SundayThe New York Times bestseller, a deeply heart-wrenching novel about the unbreakable love between a mother and child and a TIMES BEST PAPERBACK OF APRIL 2023Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university library. His mother Margaret, a Chinese American poet, left without a trace when he was nine years old. He doesn’t know what happened to her-only that her books have been banned-and he resents that she cared more about her work than about him. Then one day, Bird receives a mysterious letter containing only a cryptic drawing, and soon he is pulled into a quest to find her. His journey will take him back to the many folktales she poured into his head as a child, through the ranks of an underground network of heroic librarians, and finally to