Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Publication
The RoadRunner Press (2017), Edition: first, 44 pages
Description
A family plants an American elm on the Oklahoma prairie just as the city is taking root--and the little tree grows as Oklahoma City grows until 9:02 a.m. on April 19, 1995, the day America fell silent at the hands of one of its own. As rubble from the Alfred P. Murrah Building is cleared, the charred tree--its branches tattered and filled with evidence--faces calls that it be cut down. The only obstacle: a few people who marvel that, like them, it is still there at all. The next spring when the first new leaf appears proving the tree is alive, word spreads like a prairie wildfire through the city and the world. And the tree, now a beacon of hope and strength, is given the name: The Survivor Tree.
User reviews
LibraryThing member AbigailAdams26
"I was a tree that love had planted. I had become a symbol that love will always conquer hate."
The story of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, in which 168 people lost their lives, is told in this immensely moving picture book from the perspective of the American elm tree which survived the
Like so many others alive at the time, one of my most vivid memories of the Oklahoma City bombing was the iconic image, reproduced in so many different newspapers and television news programs, of a firefighter cradling the bloodied body of a tiny child, killed in the bombing. I have but to think of that image, to feel a lump in my throat, and a terrible sense of sadness.
The story of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, in which 168 people lost their lives, is told in this immensely moving picture book from the perspective of the American elm tree which survived the
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cataclysm. Planted on the prairie as the city around it was just starting to grow, the tree matured with the family that cultivated it, and endured after they left it behind. Eventually, in the 1970s, a large federal office building was built beside the tree, and it became a site for office workers to take their lunches, and children from the building's day care center to play. Then one terrible day, in April 1995, a truck bomb destroyed the building, killing many of those inside, including nineteen of the children in the day care. The tree, caught up as the people were in this terrible event, was a charred ruin of its former self. Many said it should be chopped down, especially as there was evidence from the blast in its seemingly dead branches. Despite this, it somehow survived, and the next spring it bloomed again, bringing hope to the people of Oklahoma City and America. A symbol of strength, resilience, healing and love, the tree was dubbed the Survivor Tree, and its seedlings were planted in all fifty states, including one on the grounds of the 9/11 memorial in New York City, where another famous survivor tree also stands...Like so many others alive at the time, one of my most vivid memories of the Oklahoma City bombing was the iconic image, reproduced in so many different newspapers and television news programs, of a firefighter cradling the bloodied body of a tiny child, killed in the bombing. I have but to think of that image, to feel a lump in my throat, and a terrible sense of sadness.
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Awards
Comstock Read Aloud Book Award (Winner — 2018)
Oklahoma Book Award (Winner — 2018)
Picture This Recommendation List (Fiction — 2019)
Language
Original language
English
Physical description
44 p.; 9.1 inches
ISBN
1937054497 / 9781937054496