Wishtree

A book about feeling welcomed and making friends.

Red is an old tree that has been around for 216 rings and knows a lot of amazing stories. Stories about love and acceptance. And trees cretainly can't tell jokes. Red become a wishtree when he was a few decades old. Still a youngter, by red oak years. Red always looks on the bright side and Bongo, Red's best friend, is always negative. But together they manage to help a newly arrived family settle in their new neighbourhood, and with that remind everyone of the importance of friendship and love, no matter where you come from.

It is a great gift indeed to love who you are.

For a short and easy to read book, this is an amazing and emotional story. Red cannot talk to humans and cannot defend himself when they want to cut him. Bit, he definitelly has a caring and loving heart. Through his kindness he manages to make some of the human wishes come true. Especially those wishing for love and friendship.

It doesn't matter what size you are, Bongo. We grow as we must grow, as our seeds decided long ago.

I live in Hong Kong and we certainly have wishtrees around here. Espeacially this time of the year, around the Lunar New Year. But that not where the similarities with this story end. The book reminds me so much of my life in Hong Kong. The different neighborhoods I've lived in are a little bit like Red's neighborhood, full of people who came from different countries, and spoke different languages. When I joined my new school I felt very welcomed and I am so happy I share every day with kids from so many different cultures.

Different languages, different food, different customs. That's our neighborhood: wild and tangled and colorful. Like the best kind of garden.

This book reads very quickly - with big fonts and short chapters. But it will stay in my memory for a very, very long time.