A wise and tender story about the patience needed for a tree–and a friendship–to grow, from award-winning author Nicholas Day.
All he wanted was a peach tree: Because when you eat a ripe peach, you get sticky and sweet, and if you don’t wash up, you stay sticky and sweet. And you feel like summer.
But when the tree arrives in the spring, it isn’t a tree. It’s a stick. Nice work, the boy tells his parents. You bought a stick. Even his friend Maya agrees. It’s a stick.
Though what happens when you plant a stick, and it grows leaves? What happens when your best friend moves away? What happens when everything that was once clear starts to change? Here is a story of growth, the enduring power of friendship, the persistence of rabbits—and a single, glorious, impossible peach.
NICHOLAS DAY is the author of The Mona Lisa Vanishes, winner of the Robert F. Sibert Award and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for nonfiction. His debut picture book, Nothing: John Cage and 4’33”, was illustrated by Chris Raschka. He has written regularly for Slate; his work has also appeared in the Atlantic, the New York Times, and the Washington Post, among other publications. He lives in Western Massachusetts with his family.
View titles by Nicholas Day
A wise and tender story about the patience needed for a tree–and a friendship–to grow, from award-winning author Nicholas Day.
All he wanted was a peach tree: Because when you eat a ripe peach, you get sticky and sweet, and if you don’t wash up, you stay sticky and sweet. And you feel like summer.
But when the tree arrives in the spring, it isn’t a tree. It’s a stick. Nice work, the boy tells his parents. You bought a stick. Even his friend Maya agrees. It’s a stick.
Though what happens when you plant a stick, and it grows leaves? What happens when your best friend moves away? What happens when everything that was once clear starts to change? Here is a story of growth, the enduring power of friendship, the persistence of rabbits—and a single, glorious, impossible peach.
NICHOLAS DAY is the author of The Mona Lisa Vanishes, winner of the Robert F. Sibert Award and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award for nonfiction. His debut picture book, Nothing: John Cage and 4’33”, was illustrated by Chris Raschka. He has written regularly for Slate; his work has also appeared in the Atlantic, the New York Times, and the Washington Post, among other publications. He lives in Western Massachusetts with his family.
View titles by Nicholas Day
