Telephone of the Tree

How I picture the night Kiri and I first met each other, first looked into each other s eyes, first reached for each other s hand, back when we were babies:
The moon like a bright white ship sailing through the sky.
Tree limbs dark against the moonlight, branches reaching to the invisible sun.
Kiri s mom holding Kiri tight in her arms and dancing Kiri down the block.
My dad holding me tight in his arms and dancing me down the block.
In the bright moonlight they dance their crying babies up and down the block so we ll stop crying, so we ll be peaceful, so we ll . . .
sleep
sleep
sleeeeeeep

I picture Kiri s mom and my dad whispering the names of all the trees to Kiri and me as they dance us past:
oak maple willow
birch pine mulberry
crabapple ginkgo butternut
and all those whispers weave their way into our hearts that night, so that night of dancing with the trees becomes the night that made
Kiri and me
love trees
maybe even
want to be trees
because of their tall, strong calm

Almost all the trees on our block were planted to celebrate new babies

oak for Pops
maple for Dad
mulberry for Mrs. S
weeping willows for Rowan and Geneva
little crabapple for Gentleman
baby birch for me
baby pine for Kiri

The oak and maple and mulberry trees are tall and wide now. They ve been growing as long as Pops and Dad and Mrs. S have been alive.
But two of the trees were planted not for new babies, but in remembrance of people who passed on.
The ginkgo in honor of Mrs. S s husband, Douglas, because he loved their beautiful fan-shaped leaves.
The butternut in honor of my grandmother Randa, because she loved to eat butternuts.

Fast-forward to second grade. Kiri and I are in Mr. Nesbitt s class. He has just told us all to draw aWhat Do You Want to Be? picture.
Imagine yourselves at age thirty, he says.
Thirty?
Kiri and I are seven. It takes a long time for us just to count to thirty. We look at each other.
I mean, my mom is

Alison McGhee is the New York Times bestselling author of books for all ages in all forms, including What I Leave Behind, Shadow Baby, Firefly Hollow, and Someday. She is the recipient of many awards and grants, including the Geisel Medal, the Christopher Award, four Minnesota Book awards, and Minnesota State Arts Board and McKnight Foundation grants. Her work has been translated into more than twenty languages. She grew up in upstate New York and lives in Minneapolis.

"Inspired by Itaru Sasaki s phone booth in Japan, where people can symbolically call deceased loved ones, McGhee lays bare the powerful emotions entangled with loss while demonstrating the strength found in community."  Booklist

"McGhee injects a speculative twist to this tender tale about death and grief. Employing spare, sensory language, McGhee explores the painful negative space created by loss and the devastation of a friendship cutshort, as well as the healing found in moving forward while remembering that 'there s more... so much more.'"  Publishers Weekly

Rather than trot in a therapist or some other mouthpiece for wise counseling, the author gives her protagonist subtler (and more believably effective) help reaching that insight most notably parents who give her space rather than unwanted advice, and her grandfather s old telephone.  Readers feeling Ayla s profound sense of loss will be relieved when she finds a way to live with it. Raw and sad but lit with occasional glints of humor and ending, as it should, on a rising note."  Kirkus, starred review

The reveal that the phone was placed by Ayla s grandpa who used it to call his wife after she passed is just one beautiful details in a story that focuses on generational healing rather than generational trauma. While more mature readers may quickly realize that Kiri has died, the novel s hybrid of lyrically written plot fragments and stream of consciousness serve to poetically reveal the facts as Ayla becomes ready to process them."  The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, starred review