Download high-resolution image Look inside
Listen to a clip from the audiobook
audio pause button
0:00
0:00

The Wrong Way Home

(Newbery Honor Award Winner)

Look inside
Listen to a clip from the audiobook
audio pause button
0:00
0:00
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.

A NEWBERY HONOR WINNER • A CALIBA GOLDEN POPPY AWARD FINALIST • A KIRKUS REVIEWS AND BOOKLIST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR


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 thinks only about how to get home again. 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?
KATE O’SHAUGHNESSY is a book nerd, animal lover, former chef, and an outdoor enthusiast. When she’s not writing, you can find Kate in her garden, eating good food, hiking with her dog, and chronically mispronouncing words she’s read but never heard said aloud. She lives in California with her family.

Don't miss Kate’s other books: The Lonely Heart of Maybelle Lane and Lasagna Means I Love You. View titles by Kate O'Shaughnessy
  • HONOR | 2025
    Newbery Honor Book
  • SELECTION
    Junior Library Guild Selection
  • SELECTION | 2024
    New York Public Library Best Books for Kids
  • SELECTION | 2024
    Kirkus Reviews Best Children's Books
  • NOMINEE | 2024
    CALIBA Golden Poppy Award - Octavia E. Butler Award
  • SELECTION | 2024
    Booklist Children's Editor's Choice
★ "Gripping. A strong, emotionally intelligent story."
Kirkus Reviews, starred review

★ "The suspenseful story is immediately intriguing, skillfully conveying the high-stakes situation and effortlessly drawing the audience in. A tremendous testament to the power in plotting your own course."
—Booklist, starred review

★ "Lovingly crafted with depth and compassion. Nuance suffuses this story of discovery, as Fern’s blind faith grows tenuous." 
— Bulletin, starred review

"Driven by a growing self-awareness that she can choose who and what she believes, this is a moving portrait of a girl undergoing drastic change." —Publishers Weekly

"This coming-of-age story centers a girl trying to decide what is right as she struggles to change from one culture to another. The first-person narrative is believable and thought-provoking as Fern reconsiders everything she’s thought to be true." —School Library Journal

"A cleverly written and supremely literary story, while also remaining pretty gripping in its telling.” —SLJ's Fuse 8

"O’Shaughnessy presents a high stakes situation and zeroes in on a child narrator’s believable emotions. That tight focus on the narrator even when she is misguided or doesn’t have all the facts allows readers to draw their own conclusions." — The Horn Book Magazine

“Kate O’Shaughnessy is an extraordinarily talented author whose 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

“Young 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

About

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.

A NEWBERY HONOR WINNER • A CALIBA GOLDEN POPPY AWARD FINALIST • A KIRKUS REVIEWS AND BOOKLIST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR


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 thinks only about how to get home again. 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?

Author

KATE O’SHAUGHNESSY is a book nerd, animal lover, former chef, and an outdoor enthusiast. When she’s not writing, you can find Kate in her garden, eating good food, hiking with her dog, and chronically mispronouncing words she’s read but never heard said aloud. She lives in California with her family.

Don't miss Kate’s other books: The Lonely Heart of Maybelle Lane and Lasagna Means I Love You. View titles by Kate O'Shaughnessy

Awards

  • HONOR | 2025
    Newbery Honor Book
  • SELECTION
    Junior Library Guild Selection
  • SELECTION | 2024
    New York Public Library Best Books for Kids
  • SELECTION | 2024
    Kirkus Reviews Best Children's Books
  • NOMINEE | 2024
    CALIBA Golden Poppy Award - Octavia E. Butler Award
  • SELECTION | 2024
    Booklist Children's Editor's Choice

Praise

★ "Gripping. A strong, emotionally intelligent story."
Kirkus Reviews, starred review

★ "The suspenseful story is immediately intriguing, skillfully conveying the high-stakes situation and effortlessly drawing the audience in. A tremendous testament to the power in plotting your own course."
—Booklist, starred review

★ "Lovingly crafted with depth and compassion. Nuance suffuses this story of discovery, as Fern’s blind faith grows tenuous." 
— Bulletin, starred review

"Driven by a growing self-awareness that she can choose who and what she believes, this is a moving portrait of a girl undergoing drastic change." —Publishers Weekly

"This coming-of-age story centers a girl trying to decide what is right as she struggles to change from one culture to another. The first-person narrative is believable and thought-provoking as Fern reconsiders everything she’s thought to be true." —School Library Journal

"A cleverly written and supremely literary story, while also remaining pretty gripping in its telling.” —SLJ's Fuse 8

"O’Shaughnessy presents a high stakes situation and zeroes in on a child narrator’s believable emotions. That tight focus on the narrator even when she is misguided or doesn’t have all the facts allows readers to draw their own conclusions." — The Horn Book Magazine

“Kate O’Shaughnessy is an extraordinarily talented author whose 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

“Young 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

Reading with Purpose Summit Event

On Monday, June 10th, Penguin Random House Education and DK Learning co-hosted a Reading with Purpose Summit Event in collaboration with Molly Ness, PhD. The event took place at Penguin Random House’s NYC headquarters and included sessions featuring leading education experts and a lunchtime author panel. The in-person professional learning event was built to show

Read more

2024 Elementary School Collection

The Penguin Random House Education Elementary School Collection features outstanding fiction, nonfiction, and picture books from Penguin Young Reader’s, Random House Children’s, DK, and Grupo Editorial, as well as children’s publishers distributed by Penguin Random House. Explore online or download this valuable resource to discover great books in specific topic areas such as: Leveled Readers,

Read more

DK Learning Phonic Books Sampler Request

Thank you for your interest in DK Learning | Phonic Books. To download the DK Learning | Phonic Books sampler with four complete readers, please click here and complete the form. Once your information is successfully submitted, a link to download the sampler will be provided on the confirmation screen.   Click here to learn

Read more

PRH Education Translanguaging Collections

Translanguaging is a communicative practice of bilinguals and multilinguals, that is, it is a practice whereby bilinguals and multilinguals use their entire linguistic repertoire to communicate and make meaning (García, 2009; García, Ibarra Johnson, & Seltzer, 2017)   It is through that lens that we have partnered with teacher educators and bilingual education experts, Drs.

Read more