Song of the Trees
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| Author | Mildred D. Taylor |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Jerry Pinkney |
| Country |
 United States
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| Language | English |
| Genre | children's literature, historical fiction |
| Publisher | Dial Press |
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Publication date
|
1975 |
| Pages | 48 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 83446854 |
| Followed by | Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry |
Song of the Trees is a 1975 novella by author Mildred Taylor. It was the first of her highly acclaimed series of books about the Logan family. The novella follows the time Mr. Anderson tried to cut down the trees on the Logan family's land. The story revolves around Cassie Logan who tries to save the trees on her Big Ma's land. Even though Cassie's family needed some money, something told Cassie the trees were just as valuable.
Song of the Trees is followed by three sequels: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (1976), Let the Circle Be Unbroken (1981), The Road to Memphis (1990), and a prequel, The Land (2001).
Eight year old Cassie Logan is woken up one sunny morning by her paternal grandmother, Big Ma. As she gathers herself together, she accidentally knocks into a chair. Prompted by Big Ma, she opens her bedroom window and gazes out into the field and examines the forest of trees that sits behind the house far back into the property. She is admired by them, but this is quickly short-lived as Big Ma tells her to get moving or else she'll whoop her.
Cassie goes into the kitchen where her mother, Mary, is there preparing breakfast. Her older brother Stacey is also there setting up the fire in the oven and one of her younger brothers Christopher-John is there. Christopher-John is scolded a little by Mary for waking up in the middle of the night eating all of the cornbread. While she doesn't want to let her children go hungry, she tells Christopher-John to ease up on his appetite. At this time, it is learned that her husband and the children's father, David Logan, is down in Louisiana laying down tracks on the railroad to support the family. Cassie's other younger brother and the youngest overall, Little Man, enters and they get into a brief fight over the stain on his pants Little Man believes Cassie is responsible for the day before. The fight is interrupted by Stacey, but Cassie and Little Man decide to settle their differences on the matter later on without Stacey around to see them.
Mary sends Cassie to help Little Man gather eggs and during this time, Big Ma urges Mary to write to David and let him know that they need money to make up for the ten dollars that mysteriously went missing from the letter he sent. Mary declines, not wanting to bug him and lets her know when it came to food supply, there was still enough vegetables in their garden to get. Big Ma asks about medicine and Mary brushes her off as Cassie re-emerges into the kitchen with a basket to gather the eggs with.
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