Books like May Bird and the Ever After

May Bird and the Ever After is a fantasy/action young adult novel by Jodi Lynn Anderson. It was released in 2005 and is the first book in the May Bird series. It was published by Atheneum Books.

May Bird lives alone with her mother and her cat, Somber Kitty (a Sphynx cat), on the edge of a wooded swamp in West Virginia. She loves to draw and make believe, but does not fit in at school. Most people are not very comfortable in the woods, but “The woods of Briery Swamp fit May Bird like a fuzzy mitten.” There, she is safe from school and the taunts and teases of the kids who do not understand her. Hidden in the trees, May imagines herself as a warrior princess, with her cat as her brave guardian. Then one day, May falls into the lake.