I've had the opportunity to read Wishtree. Very interesting book told by the tree. It's a story set in the US about nature,the importance and place of trees in suburban settings, a touch of folklore,immigration,friendship and supporting a community.
@KidsWelbeck
@kaaauthor https://t.co/UjgQr4tClR

I loved this story that kept me hooked and moved me. Lovely illustrations, excellent storytelling.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

When I came across this book I was immediately intrigued to find out if Katherine Applegate was the same author as K.A. Applegate, author of the Everworld books I read as a child. After a small amount of research I realised it was the same author and so I didn’t hesitate to order Wishtree to read to my own child – we’ve come full circle!

I read this aloud to my seven year old boy at bedtime over a few nights. The story is told from the POV of Red, a two-hundred-something year old red oak tree. My little boy especially loved the descriptions of all the animal families that live around Red and found it absolutely hilarious when Bongo the crow talked about leaving ‘deposits’ on the people she doesn’t like. I really enjoyed that Red, being static, couldn’t know some parts of the story until they were revealed later.

Red is a Wishtree – he receives wishes from the people who live in his town when they tie scraps of paper or fabric to his branches with their wishes on. The story follows Samar, a young girl from a Muslim family who has recently moved into the neighbourhood. Without spoiling anything, there are some beautiful messages about immigration, belonging, friendship and islamophobia in this book. I had some brilliant conversations with my son as a result of some of the themes. It got quite difficult to read towards the end as the pages blurred with the tears in my eyes – grab some tissues! I found this to be a genuinely moving story.

As well as having a beautiful message, the book also has some beautiful illustrations. I would recommend this book to anyone with children, especially if you would like a way to introduce discussions around immigration and islamophobia. My seven year old enjoyed the story too and when we finished reading Wishtree, he asked me if I have any others like this – high praise indeed!

(I Received this book from Netgalley and will be writing my honest opinion of this book)

For a target audience of children, this book is a nice example of an easy and quick read that would be great to read aloud to children. There were a lot of nice philosophical lines throughout this book which were easy to understand and think about, as well as funny moments that will lead to some giggles.
The story's message is very clear and the author portrays that point very well.

However, I would have preferred the story to be set in the pov of a much more active character. I know that trees can't move about, but the story would have been better if it was about one of the animals living in the wish tree, and interacted with the wish as they already did within the book.
Or, it would have been better to have the story centered more around the wish tree as a lot of the characters came and went, and so it felt like nothing happened in the story. Red said that it often watched people, however there was a lack of the complexity of people, and the racism in the story was brushed aside and resolved like it was nothing.

I would have also preferred if the wish tree held a more magical description for what it represented. Instead, it sounded like I was reading a textbook. And to say Red was a tree, it was very human-like and didn't think from the point of view of a tree, and somehow understood human languages and everything they talked about. There was no sense of the hopes and wishes behind the wishes of the wish tree and I think a little more detail in this area could improve the story.

I absolutely loved this book it is such a lovely story and me cry in places. The illustrations are beautiful and go really well with the book. The front cover is what drawn me to the book straight away. Red is Northern Oak tree who has lots of little animals that live in her tree. The chapters are very short. Every year people go and put scraps of paper or fabric on Red and they call her the wishtree.
I definitely recommend this book and it’s book you can keep coming back to its lovely story . Thank you NetGalley for letting me read this book.