Water Birds

Some songs can only be heard by those who are ready to change. Twelve-year-old Mira Valsen has always known the lake is different. Not dangerous - just aware. Like it watches. Like it waits. Every morning she walks its shore barefoot, gathering flowers, feeling the ground's warmth beneath her feet, sensing things she has no words for yet. Then one dawn, the water begins to glow. A sound rises from the depths - not quite music, not quite language - and lands inside Mira's chest like something that has always lived there, waiting to be woken.
The elders call it the Trill. And the last time it was heard, no one alive in Latria was born yet. The Water Birds have returned. Ancient creatures born from the first rain that ever touched earth. Invisible to most. Felt in the bones before they're seen with the eyes. They only appear when the balance of the world is breaking - and this time, the danger isn't coming from outside Latria. It's growing inside it, in the hearts of people who have decided that what they fear must be destroyed.
Mira is the only one who can hear the Birds. But she doesn't know yet what that means - or what it will cost her. Alongside her: a boy who has been hiding a glowing feather under his floorboards for six months and pretending he doesn't know why. A girl who found an inscription on an ancient wall that no one else noticed, and has been carrying its secret alone ever since. And somewhere beneath the lake, older than the village, older than memory - something is waking up.
Perfect for fans of Kelly Barnhill's The Girl Who Drank the Moon. Some gifts choose you before you're ready. The lake has been waiting. So have you.