God, that ending brought me close to tears. What a beautiful, hopeful story. The people wanting to make access to this book unavailable (looking at you Floyd County Public Schools in Virginia and Jodi Farmer) to little kids who need to read it are and will be irrelevant to history as the nameless and faceless shat-on bully from Wishtree. Imagine focusing on such a minor, and botanically accurate, point of the story and saying it's "indoctrination at its finest" (like sending your kids to a private Christian school isn't?! but I digress) when the story is about much more. It's about love and acceptance. It's about community and kindness. It's about not let hatred blossom. It's about friendship, and overcoming imposed obstacles to achieve that friendship. It's about, unfortunately, some people never leaving their biases and prejudices behind but still living harmoniously. It teaches kids that disagreeing and arguing with someone doesn't preclude you from still being friends. That you can have a thousand differences and still share something special with someone, nourishing the shared bond you have like Red and Bongo do. It's about how small and irrelevant bullies, racists, Islamophobes, transphobes, xenophobes, and all other hateful people are, that they are not worth exploring and giving page time to. They're not even worth giving names to, and throughout the story names and naming conventions are so important.

Maybe this book can be accused of being simplistic and too wishful, but I think kids need these kinds of stories so much. It sets on the topic and then a discussion can be had about how idealistic it is and if a neighborhood can work being that welcoming. Or why can't people be like Samar's classmates and teachers and neighbors from Wishtree's neighborhood. It can also open up the topic of rules and rule breaking, and when sometimes, out of self-preservation or any other reason, breaking "the rules" is necessary and maybe even justifiable, like in Red's case when they break the "not talking to humans" rule.

Reading this book requires an open heart and an open mind. As an adult/parent, it requires abandoning authoritarianism and letting your kids have differing and disagreeing opinions. That doesn't mean they'll love you or disrespect you any less for it. Who knows? Maybe the kid will reject the messaging you're throwing a fit over on their own and not like the book. Maybe they'll think the story is silly and boring and too goody-two-shoes. But you won't know it until you let them read it. (Though Jodi Farmer's kids were not even gonna read it anyway bc they don't attend Floyd Co. public schools so I don't get why she's sticking her nose where it don't belong!) And look, if Katherine Applegate had come up with the tree thing and taken it out of her butt maybe I'd get it but this is true, real life science wtf 😭 Saying nature facts is "indoctrination" tells you all you need to know about this ignorant Jodi person.

Anyway, I LOVED this book and thought it was super adorable. And Charles Santoso's illustrations were absolutely formidable and precious! The cutest animal babies ever 🫶🏻 I love Katherine Applegate and her writing, so all the ignorant transphobic haters can take a big, fat deposit on their heads. Iykyk lol