Before you leave...
Take 20% off your first order
20% off
Enter the code below at checkout to get 20% off your first order
Discover summer reading lists for all ages & interests!
Find Your Next Read
Told from the wry, world-weary perspective of a ninety-year-old Eastern Cottonwood on the Vicksburg bluffs, this illustrated novella recasts the Siege of Vicksburg (1862-63) as witnessed by the wildlife who actually lived through it. The tree - dryly unimpressed by human "architecture," steamboats, and ironclads - narrates the chaos alongside its animal tenants: a gossiping flying squirrel, a bickering mockingbird couple who mimic cannon fire for fun, a cynical raccoon matriarch, and a possum with poor impulse control. Real historical beats (a grounded steamboat, Farragut's ironclad fleet, the CSS Arkansas's suicidal run through the Union gauntlet, a human family sheltering in a cave dug into the tree's roots) play out as slapstick and quiet tragedy in equal measure, with the tree itself taking a cannonball to the trunk and losing a limb before the armies finally move on. It closes on a note of patient, ecological perspective - the tree outlasting the war, certain the humans will return.
Dedicated to the work and the mission of the Arbor Day Foundation.
Thanks for subscribing!
This email has been registered!
Take 20% off your first order
Enter the code below at checkout to get 20% off your first order