by Moe Zilla

Created on: February 25, 2010

"Today I am doing my favorite thing. I'm lying under our tree, staring up at the leaves." Eve Bunting writes a simple story about a family's beloved tree - but she leads it to a surprisingly powerful conclusion. Bunting makes her stories feel personal by describing lots of details in the lives of her characters. It's just that in this story, one of the characters is a tree!

"Above my head a spider sways. Somewhere an owl lives, hidden..."

A little girl visits the tree every day with her mother - with a sheepdog named Cinco, and some lemonade or some apples. The tree has a great significance for the family, which the girl reveals in her request for a story. "Tell how,  just before I was born, you  and Dad stopped here one day to picnic under the tree and you saw that the land and the house were for sale..." And later there's a second story about the family christening the girl under the tree - interrupted by bees and a messy bird.

I like how Bunting gradually introduces more pieces to the story. On hot days city travellers stop under the tree to picnic, "and pretend not to be listening to our stories. But sometimes we see them smile." The family is proud of their tree, and it's genuinely enjoyed by the people passing by on a nearby road. Which is why it's so sad that the tree suddenly starts getting sick.

Bunting dedicates the book to Andrea Karlin, "who once gave me a tree." And there's a deep appreciation for trees that runs throughout the story. The girl's father calls a tree doctor, who touches the cheek of the worried little girl. "I need to run some test before I'll know... Keep thinking good thoughts, honey."

Bunting makes clear that everyone loves the tree - but an anonymous bad actor has left poison around the tree's base. "Maybe someone dumped chemicals they weren't supposed to dump," the father explains grimly. "Maybe it was quicker and easier to unload their stuff here by the road." A few neighbors pitch in to try replacing the tree's soil. And even the fire department arrives, to spray water on the fading leaves.

The tree appears in the local newspaper - and it's visited by folks hoping for a healthy recovery. There's get-well cards on the grass, and a balloon shaped like a heart. But the tree doctor brings bad news - and there's a sad picture of the leafless tree, drooping in the light of a silver full moon. Ronald Himler contributed some beautiful watercolors to the story.

But it took Eve Bunting to find a meaningful message in the last days of a tree.

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