Hello! I decided to do this book today because I just finished it, and it was super good. This book was so good that I read it in little less than two days, and I didn’t even want to read it at first.
Why did I even read this book in the first place?
I read this book for a class project (my group finished Refugee), and as I said before, I didn’t really want to read it. The majority of us did, though, so I thought, Well, it’s worth a try, and I’m so glad that I did read it!
Summary
This book is very different than other books, for the fact that the narrator is a tree named Red. Red is just over 200 rings old, and is the neighborhood’s wishtree; every first of May, people write their wishes on pieces of cloth, such as ribbons, T-shirts, and even underwear.
There are two houses that are on the same piece of land as Red; in one lives a Muslim girl and her family, who aren’t accepted yet by the town – even the next-door neighbor, Stephen. Samar, the girl, comes out every late Spring night and sits against Red’s trunk. She has made friends with all of Red’s residents – the owls, the crow, the opossums, the skunks, the raccoons – and they come out every night to join her.
Everyone in the town is in peace…until one day, when somebody carves a word into Red’s trunk – LEAVE.
Why do I like/dislike this book?
I loved this book, because, first of all, it was super well-written, and it must have been really hard for the author to write a book in the perspective of a tree. I appreciate greatly the fact that she chose to do this hard task, risking that it may not necessarily turn out, because it did, and I’m so glad, along with a lot of other people I know, that she did take that risk. I really loved how Red decided to help Samar with her problems, despite all of Red’s own. Wishtree made me think about ways that the world could improve, and even how people themselves could, too. This. Book. Is. Amazing. You should definitely read it!
Recommended for fans of books that are different, but in a VERY good way.
To find out more about Katherine Applegate, go to her website, at katherineapplegate.com.
