Learning Tree

I read this for book club. We selected it because the author grew up nearby and used his home town as the setting of the book. It is a moving depiction of rural life for African Americans in the early 21st century.Be aware that even though the listing is for a new book, the copy you receive may have been printed decades ago. Mine arrived in what I would call "unread" condition - certainly not "new". The pages are yellowed and the glue is aged enough that half the book fell out while I was reading it. I believe it is from the 1989 printing!

It was always hard to get my attention when I was a young girl in high school. English class to me was born. But really it only depended on who the teacher was. And I remember my teacher being mister pellam and I'm sure that talk to text did not spell that right but he was the first English teacher to present this story to me. Mr. George Pelham and that is the correct spelling and he taught me so much just through this story. And it was hard to get my interest but after reading just the first page of this story I was hooked and it was the first time I got to be in English a student who was a tentative and interested and grated with a B on the final report. But the book taught me something about life. And here it is many years later and I was able to find that teacher and thank him for that story. And when I found out that this became a movie I had to own it. It's hard to watch the movie certain parts like the death of Marcus. But a lot of the things that Newt went through trying to accept what life was all about and what death was all about was something I could totally relate to

I first read "The Learning Tree" in a college Literature for Adolescents class twenty years ago and recently reread it for a book discussion group. And I still love this novel. I regret that because of the language, which is certainly appropriate to its subject, I cannot teach it in my conservative school district. However, I can and have highly recommended it to my junior high students, with the language caveat. (On an aside, this book just shows how out of touch many college profs are with what literature we can actually teach in the public schools!)As for the book itself, it tells a wonderfully interesting and entertaining story, full of the joy of long summer days with friends, the horror of murder, the fear of racial conflict, the blush of first love--and betrayal, and the hard road to growing from a boy into a man. For me, it suffers nothing in comparison to "Black Boy" and "To Kill a Mockingbird." Instead, it complements those novels as a vivid portrayal of growing up in America.Read it!

Even as an adult I enjoy reading juvenile fiction, and this book is a new favorite.

My book club member chose this book for February and all the club members loved it. It was a good read. We shared a lot of things that we went through as children and how it related to this book. Great discussion.

This is a classic book written by a renaissance man-- Gordon Parks

Often when a movie is made that is based upon a book, the book is usually better; however, I can't say the same here. As I read this, I found myself thinking more about the movie and how much better the movie scenes were. In any event, this was a pretty good read. It started out rather slowly for me, but picked up about mid-way and I was able zoom through to the end. The book brings forth additional members of Newton's family and touches on other aspects of life that were not a part of the movie (Newt's friendship with Rodney, Newt's cousin who could pass for white). I am hoping for and patiently waiting on the DVD.

This is an old copy with yellowed pages and very small print. I have to read it using a magnifying glass. If you have eyesight problems, I would not recommend it, if not, then it's a good read so far.