Tree Girl

Tree Girl by Ben Mikaelsen (2005) Guatemalan villager Gabi has always been drawn to climb tall trees, and is the only member of her indigenous family to attend school. But she finds herself alone when her village is destroyed by the military, and her harrowing journey becomes more sobering in light of the fact that Gabi is based on a real Tree Girl, and that the ethnic cleansing depicted in the novel is based on historical fact.

This story is told in the first person, which both increases the reader’s identification with the protagonist and heightens the tension and uncertainty of her situation: the reader is as in the dark about what might happen next as she is. Another character, Mario, asks, “when does a cup become full?” and this question leads one to reflect on how Gabi has changed and been changed through the course of her experiences to the point at which the book ends.

Tree Girl
Tree Girl is a book based on a real story told to the author. It is about the war that is happening in Central America, the guerrilla versus the soldiers. The story tells us about this girl called Gabriela, who has major lost because of the war. She, her little sister Alicia and a little boy Antonio was all that was left of her village. They join hordes of refugees trying to reach the Mexican border.
Gabriela is also known as “Tree Girl”. This is because she loves to climb trees. She can climb higher than any boys ever dare. Once in the story, climbing trees actually saved her life.
I font want to spoil the story for you, it is a great book and I recommend very one read it. It will give you more awareness about the issues that are happening in the world today.

As explained in the author’s note, this book is based on a true story, although the protagonist’s name has been changed. Tree Girl tells the story of Gabriela Flores, a young girl who loves her family, going to school, and climbing trees to their highest branches. It is this last activity that christens her with the nickname “tree girl,” and it is also the one that saves her, repeatedly, when war breaks out shortly after her fifteenth birthday. Gabriela’s people, the Maya of Guatemala, are routinely massacred by the military without mercy. Climbing high into trees and hiding allows Gabriela to escape being murdered, but it also means she must remain idly by while watching horrific scenes take place below her. As such, this book is rather traumatic to read, and I find that the writing style does not help. There is nothing literary to the telling of this story, just the straightforward telling of tragic events without respite. There is also little character development or historical context, the latter of which I think is sorely missed as most readers will not even know when the events of this book are taking place without that information. Overall, I think this is an important story that needed to be told, but I wish that the telling had been better executed. ( )

This historical fiction disturbs and inspires. ( )