Wildoak

Wildoak (2022) by C.C. Harrington is a historical novel for middle grade readers. It celebrates the natural world and one girl’s special connection to it. Set in 1963, it tells the story of how the novel’s 11-year-old protagonist, Maggie, is sent to Cornwall from London to stay with her grandfather. Her parents hope that this environment will help her with the stutter that isolates her from her peers. In Cornwall, Maggie’s deep bond with nature allows her to commune with the ancient forest, which is named Wildoak, and with its surprising new occupant: a snow leopard named Rumpus. As Maggie learns to accept herself and communicate with more confidence, she uses her individual gifts to make a positive difference in the natural world around her.

Wildoak received the American Library Association’s Schneider Family Book Award in 2023, and it was chosen as an honor book for the Green Earth Book Award in 2023. The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), the School Library Journal, and the Bank Street Children’s Book Committee all include Wildoak in their lists of best books for young people. Its accessible and respectful treatment of communication differences and habitat destruction make it a supportive context for both young and adult readers to explore these sensitive topics.

This study guide refers to the 2022 Scholastic Press edition of Wildoak.

Plot Summary

Eleven-year-old Maggie, who has a stutter, drives a pencil into the palm of her hand to get herself excused from reading aloud in class. She gets into trouble for this at school, and she is asked not to return. Back at home, she seeks comfort in the refuge of a cupboard in her room, where she keeps a small menagerie of unusual pets. Her father, Vince, is angry that Maggie has been dismissed from yet another school. He wants to send Maggie to an institution called Granville, where students are rumored to be treated very sternly. However, Maggie’s mother, Evelyn, argues that Maggie should first visit her grandfather in Cornwall for a time, to see if her stutter will improve among nature. At Cornwall, Maggie’s warm and loving grandfather, Fred, makes every effort to ensure her comfort in his home. On her first night there, Maggie glimpses an animal through her bedroom window: It looks like a leopard, but she is sure she must be imagining things.

Unbeknownst to Maggie, the creature she spotted from her bedroom window really is a leopard—a snow leopard called Rumpus. He was recently abandoned in Wildoak forest, which is the forest that surrounds Fred’s cottage. The disoriented cat has claimed an ancient oak in this forest as his new home. The following night, Rumpus is caught in a poacher’s trap and is severely injured. Maggie discovers him while she is exploring the forest the next day. She frees him from the trap and brings him food and water.

When Rumpus’s wound becomes infected, Maggie makes medicines from the forest plants and tends to him. On a visit to town, she overhears that a villager spotted Rumpus, and she worries about the ramifications of this. Even after Rumpus fully recovers, he is still not out of danger: Rumors about his presence in the forest are circulating, and the villagers are getting nervous. Meanwhile, Lord Foy, a greedy landowner, begins cutting down the trees in Wildoak as he prepares to sell the forest land to a mining company. The villagers call a meeting and agree to set traps and send out a hunting party after Rumpus. Both Fred and Maggie try to speak against this plan, but Fred is argued down by Lord Foy, and Maggie is unable to share her thoughts because of her stutter. When Fred and Maggie return home, Maggie tells Fred everything that has been happening with Rumpus, and Fred agrees to work with her to save the big cat before it is too late.

Unfortunately, the villagers have already trapped Rumpus, and Maggie and Fred are just in time to see them driving Rumpus away in a crate on the back of a truck. Fred recognizes the truck, and Maggie convinces him that they should go to the owner’s home to try to rescue Rumpus. They mount a daring rescue and manage to bring Rumpus back to Fred’s cottage, where they have prepared a pen to hold him. Maggie’s parents arrive for a visit just as an angry crowd of villagers also arrives with a police officer to confront Fred and Maggie about Rumpus. Maggie is finally able to speak up in Rumpus’s defense, and she impresses the villagers enough that Rumpus is left in her and Fred’s care for the time being. Her father, Vince, has also heard Maggie speak, and he decides that Maggie is making real progress. Vince declares that Maggie will not be sent to Granville after all.

In the book’s epilogue, Maggie is an adult working for a conservation organization. She gives a speech explaining how her childhood visit to Cornwall shaped the person she has eventually become. She reveals that Rumpus went to live at a wildlife sanctuary in Scotland. Also, before Lord Foy finished cutting down Wildoak forest, she and Fred collected acorns from the ancient oak and used these to replant oak trees all over Cornwall.