May Bird and the Ever After

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

Plot
May Bird lives alone with her mother and her cat, Somber Kitty (a hairless Rex) on the edge of a wooded swamp in West Virginia. She loves to draw and make believe, and desperately wants to fit in at school but can not seem to figure out how. Most people aren't 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 kids who don't understand her. Hidden in the trees, May is a warrior princess, and her cat is her brave guardian. Then May falls into the lake. When she crawls out, May finds herself in a world that is inhabited by things she thought were just in her imagination. She sees many, many ghosts and other amazing creatures. A ghost named Pumpkin, (with a pumpkin head) has pulled her into the Ever After. It is a place few living people have ever seen. Here, towns glow blue beneath zipping stars and the people walk through walls. Here the Book of the Dead holds the answers to everything in the universe. And here, if May is discovered, the horrifyingly evil Bo Cleevil will destroy her. May Bird must get out. This is the beginning of May Bird's daring journey into the Ever After, a haunting place where true friends -- and many terrible foes -- await her on every corner. She meets Pumpkin, her house ghost/guardian who lives with the Beekeeper Arista in a giant house shaped like a beehive. She is told that she needs to go see the Lady of North Farm, a place no ghost is willing to go. Along the journey May meets new friends and sees new cites full of unimaginable sights. She faces many adventures with characters that you will discover if you just read this book.

The second book is May Bird Among the Stars

Reception
The novel received a fairly positive reception from critics and readers.