The Together Tree, a message illustrated book that knows where it lives

There are certain illustrated books that hammer down into a select age range so efficiently that they’re the Zillow of suspect real estate areas. If you decide on a house that’s just one block down from another it could mean that your dream house has turned into a den of depreciation. The Together Tree is a very cute illustrated book that has its footprint firmly situated in the pre-k through first-grade market. Should any second graders enter the orbit of The Together Tree their “baby book” radar will immediately go off.

This is where you tell those surly eight-year-old mensa candidates that just last year they would’ve found this book interesting. You can follow it up by telling them that the lessons in The Together are ones that they need to hold onto for the rest of their lives. If they play their cards correctly then those same lessons will make them better human beings, allow them to have better quality friends, and even make more money as an adult. While we might’ve reached into the illustrated book ether a bit for some parts of that last sentence, it is true to an extent.

At its core, The Together Tree is an elementary school The Breakfast Club, with a demographically younger version of each group represented. Rumi is the new kid at school who’s feeling the effects of entering a social happening where everyone knows everyone else. He’s quiet, partially because of the fact that he’s not as outgoing, and partially due to that he just likes art. Rumi likes to draw and spends the first couple of days of recess under a big tree, drawing shapes in the dirt with a stick.

A trio of kids notice Rumi, the new kid, and promptly start to mock his shoes, clothing and then things get worse. One of the kids throws a piece of paper at him during music class. It hits his ugly and different shoes, and two of the three kids giggle. This emboldens them even further and the next day at recess the biggest of them throws a pebble at his legs, striking his knee and drawing blood.

This time the other friend isn’t laughing. The jerk that threw the pebble feels, as they should, like a jerk, and the third friend steps up and does the right thing. He simply asks Rumi if he wants to play, to which the answer is a big fat, yes, and he sees the magic that Rumi has been creating under the tree. It’s a gorgeous tapestry of a design that’s etched in the dirt that blows him away.

Later that day, Asher, the jerk kid who threw the pebble, writes Rumi a note apologizing for his stupidity. The next day proves to be a different kind for Rumi as the second one of the trio asks to play, draw with him and then many of their classmates join in, all except for Asher. He’s withdrawn in his shell and spends recess alone in the library until Rumi suggests that they all go inside and be together. On the final day of class that the book shows, they’re all under the canopy of the tree, doodling with sticks in the ground.

The illustrations in The Together Tree are more realistic than those emerging elementary-aged students are used to, but that’s a good thing. That fact adds into the aspect that this is a real-life instance where they are, or know someone who is a character in the book. While those pre-k and K students won’t have seen The Breakfast Club, they’ll draw the same parallels in their minds about each kid. This is where the age of the book is going to have a hard stop. Even some kindergarten students might try to coyly say something seemingly smart or clever in an attempt to gain some negative attention, and those second graders won’t last a minute without saying something mean in regards to somebody in their class.

The Together Tree is sweet. It’s that sweet, unassuming nature that those young ages need to see because it also teaches them the lesson of how they could be. I’m not naïve, we all aren’t going to be friends, but that doesn’t provide a license for some of us to be jerks. However, that’s going to happen and by Rumi giving some power, the power of forgiveness to Asher, it demonstrates that even kids that young can flip the script. It’s a story that’s all the more sweet because it was inspired by the author’s experience when she visited her child’s kindergarten class. This is a book that’ll resonate with those young audiences in a manner that will yield conversations and hopefully getting a kid or two to change their jerk ways.

The Together Tree is by Aisha Saeed with illustrations by LeUyen Pham and is available on Salaam Reads, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.

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