🤷‍♂️Tree Table Book (2024)

By Lois Lowry

4Rbooks                                         3/6                   grades          6-7

Amazon                                          4.5/5              grade level   3-7

Goodreads                                      4.31/5          

Common Sense Media               4/5                  ages   8+

194 pages

Synopsis

            Sophie is 11 years old and getting ready for middle school.  She has two good friends, Ralphie and Oliver, but Sophie 11 has a best friend also named Sophie.  She is 88 years old, but they don’t let 77-year difference in their ages keep them from being great friends. But Sophie 11 is worried.  Her friend is showing signs of dementia and she learns that Sophie 88’s son is coming to take her to an assisted living facility.

            Sophie 11 doesn’t want to lose her best friend so she decides to give her friend a test from a medical book to prove that she still has cognitive abilities to take care of herself. Unfortunately, Sophie 88 doesn’t do that well, but in the course of the questioning, Sophie 11 learns things about Sophie 88 that she has never shared with anyone.  Three words, Tree, Table, and Book give Sophie 88 the opening to share stories of her life in Poland, just before the beginning of WWII.

            Sophie 11 realizes that sometimes there is only so much you can do, and that knowing the stories is just as important and knowing the person.

Parental Guidelines:    medium-high

The two Sophies (88 and 11) met when Sophie 11’s mom and dad left her home alone, each one thinking the other was watching her.

Sophie 88 is suffering from the onset of dementia.

Sophie 11 likes to look things up in a Merck medical book that she borrows from her friend Ralphie (dad’s a doctor). Ralphie asks if she is looking up private parts.

Sophie 88’s husband died in bed the night he retired.

Sophie 88 told a story of a baker and the table where they made bread. His wife gave birth on that same table, and it’s where they laid him for visitation when he passed away.

Sophie 88’s father and two brothers were taken away by soldiers. 

Sophie 88 was given by her mother to another family because she couldn’t afford to take care of both her and her sister.

Sophie 88 tells a story of her wedding day and uses the words boobs and boobies. Sophie 11 says “D*** it all!” (with the asterisks).

Ralphie and Sophie 11 break into an abandoned house.

Sophie 88’s mother “borrowed” a book from her employer’s home.

There are a couple of comments about how Catholic families have lots of children, past and present.

There is local lore about an indigenous curse which Sophie 11 uses on Sophie 88’s son.

The two Sophies play a game making up imaginary people with imaginary lives, all with alliterative twists, and they like to marry them to each other.  One of the couples is two men in a same sex marriage who want to have a child through surrogacy. It really felt like this was thrown in just to check the inclusivity box.

Sophie and Ralphie’s friend Oliver is on the spectrum and is very similar to Sheldon from Young Sheldon.

Recommendation

               There is much here to like and appreciate but the best recommendation I can give it is “meh.” Sophie 11, the narrator, is not the easiest character to like. She can be bossy and want things her way. While Sophie 88’s family stories are poignant, there is no context.  If the reader if familiar with WWII history, they will understand who the characters are and what is happening when her family is taken away and she is given away. A reader without that background knowledge will wonder what is happening and be extremely bothered that Sophie 88’s mother gave her away.

            This would be difficult as a classroom read because of the word choices that I would never say in a classroom.  It would be excellent as a family read where the parents could explain WWII and what was happening to Sophie 88’s family and could explain Sophie 88’s on coming dementia.  

            As far as an individual read, the cover and number of pages make this seem like an elementary read, but the word choices and subject matter means I can only recommend this as a middle school book.