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Wishtree
Katherine Applegate (2017) · 215pages · Contemporary
Summary
Red, a 216-year-old red oak tree, has served as the neighborhood wishtree for generations — every May, people tie cloth wishes to her branches. When a new Muslim family moves in next door and someone carves the word 'LEAVE' into Red's trunk, Red breaks her lifelong silence to bring the community together and protect a ten-year-old girl named Samar, who has wished on Red's branches for just one friend.
Why It Matters
Wishtree became one of the most widely used books in American elementary and middle school classrooms for teaching about prejudice, empathy, and community response to hate. Its non-human narrator made it uniquely accessible for young readers encountering these themes for the first time, while its...
Themes & Motifs
Diction & Style
Register: Accessible and warm — written at a middle-grade level with lyrical flourishes that elevate the prose beyond simple children's fiction without making it inaccessible
Narrator: Red: first-person (first-tree?), omniscient within her physical range, wise but not infallible, warm but not naive. H...
Figurative Language: Moderate
Historical Context
Post-2016 America — rising Islamophobia, xenophobic rhetoric in national politics, community-level responses to hate crimes: Wishtree is a product of its political moment — the 'LEAVE' carved into Red's trunk is a stand-in for the thousands of small acts of exclusion that Muslim Americans experienced during and after 201...
Key Characters
Talking Points
- Why does Katherine Applegate choose a tree as the narrator instead of Samar or another human character? What can Red see and say that a human narrator couldn't?
- The person who carved 'LEAVE' into Red's trunk is never identified. Why does Applegate keep the carver anonymous? Would the novel be stronger or weaker if we knew who did it?
- Samar's wish is 'I wish I had a friend.' Why is this simple wish more powerful than a bigger wish like 'I wish everyone would stop being mean' or 'I wish we could move somewhere better'?
- Red says she has seen the same cycle of prejudice against newcomers repeat for 216 years. Is this observation hopeful or depressing? Can something that keeps happening still be fixable?
- Samar's mother plants tomatoes in the backyard. Why does Applegate include this detail? What does gardening mean in the context of a family being told to leave?
Notable Quotes
“I'm Red. I'm a tree. An oak, to be specific, a red oak. I stand at the edge of a yard, on a quiet street, in a small town.”
“Trees can't tell jokes. But we can certainly appreciate them.”
“The word was carved deep. I could feel every letter.”
Why Read This
Because Red is the kind of friend everyone needs — patient, wise, and brave enough to act when standing still isn't enough. This book will make you think about what it feels like to be new, what it costs to be silent, and what it means when one pe...