The Linden Tree

Author: Ellie Mathews

Publisher: Milkweed Editions

Publication Year: 2007

Lexile: 1040L (This book is not in the Lexile Book Database. I used the Lexile Analyzer to get this value.)

Most of the readers will be: Middle school girls.

Reader's Advisory: This book would be great to read before going back a little further in American history with the Laura Ingalls Wilder Little House books.

Summary:
Katy Sue's mother has just died of meningitis and is buried under the old linden tree up on the hill. Katy Sue, her sister Ingrid, her brother Ben, and their Papa do their best to carry on "now Edna's gone." They live on a farm in Iowa in 1948 and life is hard. Katy Sue cares for the chickens. Ben raises the pigs. Papa works in the field. And Ingrid does the house work. It isn't long before they realize they need help, and Papa asks Mama's sister Aunt Katherine to move in with them. Aunt Katherine makes life both easier and harder. She helps Ingrid in the kitchen, but she can be very critical of Katy Sue. As the year passes the family works together to keep the farm going, and keep each other going whenever they miss Mama.

My favorite passage:

"There's something I didn't tell my mama. When she was sick, I mean." Mrs. Breton leaned forward. I bunched my fingers into the splotches in my skirt. "Mama said I was her special treasure and I didn't answer." I twisted my fingers in my skirt as if to make the wet spots disappear. "I should have. But I didn't know what to say." I had nowhere to look but into my own lap. "I mean - I didn't think - I didn't think she would really - that she'd really die." My hands stopped moving. "I thought I had time to say it, you know, later."
"And now there is no later, is there? That's the heartbreak." Mrs. Breton touched my wrist and said in a voice that made me think of the warmest, deepest, clearest pool imaginable, "You wanted to say how much you loved her, didn't you?"
I snapped my eyes to Mrs. Breton's. "How did you know?"
"But hadn't you ever told her that?"
"Oh, yes ma'am. Lots of times. All the time. Every day. She was the best mama anyone ever had."
"Then you didn't have to tell her again. She already knew. You have nothing to worry about. Nothing at all. There's more to loving someone than what you say to them, you know."
"Yes, ma'am," I said. "But still, I wish I'd said it."
"I'll tell you what. Why don't you find something around your farm to draw some pictures of. Then you can put her in the pictures. Just the way you want to see her. You have milk cows out at your place, don't you?"
"Some days it seems we're raising nothing but crows out in the field."
"Then draw me some crows."
"I don't like crows."
"Well, okay."
I couldn't have said why, but that made me laugh on top of my crying, thinking of crows at a time like that and because people sort of teased Mrs. Breton about how serious she could be about drawing pictures all the time, and there we were talking about crows. (pg 31-32)

What I really think:
Mathews skillfully takes us through the grieving process. Katy Sue doesn't want to celebrate her birthday without her mother. She doesn't want to celebrate Christmas. She is afraid of people being nice to her because it makes her cry, but when she cries with her teacher, it helps her. On top of all these emotions, Katy Sue doesn't know what to do with Aunt Katherine. Her aunt hurts her feelings by correcting her grammar, but then Katy Sue learns that it was this same aunt who held her through the colic when she was a baby. Everything the family goes through is difficult, but they do get through it. This book could be helpful to a young person dealing with loss, or even to someone getting a step parent. Aunt Katherine has to be a mother figure without trying to take their mother's place. This is also a good read just for learning more about early America.