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Rating: 
Summary: My feelings about this book
Review: Being a life-long Appalchian native myself, I found the "Education of Little Tree" to be quite a realistic depiction of cultural and personal experiences of the rural, old-time Appalachian life style. This story hit home with me on a personal level like nothing else I have encountered! This was an experience which was uplifting, passionate and enlightening despite the fact that the story contains many disheartening and even somewhat cruel extractions from the time frame and cultural environment in which it takes place. This story is a deviation from the main stream for most folks, yet it evokes feelings and values which will bring together people from all walks of life in a heart-felt manner by engaging the most powerful, but basic emotions in one and all! The characters bring about an interesting combination of personnas as they blend the Native American life styles and beliefs into the Anglo-American culture which is bent on pushing its inflexible attitudes upon everyone that it touches. This is an adaptation of exploring the harshness of life in rural Appalachia and the culture shocks of the time. This will be an eye-opener to those not familiar with Native Americans in Appalachia and their struggles fitting into a rigid, ever-growing white society. This story also contains an insightful mixture of sorrow, humor and seriousness with more fact than fiction while ultimately teaching us all something about ourselves, as well as Little Tree! ...
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Summary: Not a True Story! Wait Until You Find Out About the Author!
Review: I have to give the book 5 stars, because as a novel, it is up there with the best: well-written, compelling, sweet, interesting characters, thought provoking, educational.
However, this book is described as being a "true story." With that in mind, and because I so enjoyed the book, I began to reesearch Forrest Carter. What I found was that these events never occurred to him; additionally, he was a racist, a drunk, and a criminal (not to mention a famous speech writer).
I am amazed that he was capable of writing a novel with such feeling. I don't know how he did it. If my comments seem bitter and untrue, search for yourself. I was shocked what I found by simply doing a search on "Forrest Carter" in Google.
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Summary: Big Triump for Little Tree
Review: I read The Education of Little Tree, which is one of the best books I have ever read. The story was an extremely easy read, as it kept my interest from beginning to end. My only question is why Carter chose not to have his work edited since there were some parts of the reading that were slow to get through with the spelling and grammar mistakes.
Nevertheless, the novel helped me to recognize some of the history and culture of the Cherokee people. I felt embarrassed that people would make fun of or mistreat other ethnic groups before they understood them. For example, when the bus driver said, "How!" and laughed, I felt disgusted that he wasn't more of a professional.
On the other hand, the "farm in the clearing" part of the story where the soldier left gifts, including a mule and corn seed, for the poor family made me feel cheerful. The white Union soldier added a caring balance to the cruel white folks.
I thought his use of detail throughout the book was terrific, and it made me feel as if I was there with him. One of my favorite scenes was the night on the mountain, when him and Granpa slept in the cedar tree and watched the moon slip over a far mountain and dawn streak across the sky in pink, red, yellow, and blue. I was enticed to read the book outside where I could enjoy the serenity of nature. This fascinating autobiography has earned its spot in classical literature and will continue to intrigue one and all for generations to come.
Rating: 
Summary: The Education of Little Tree
Review: The Education of Little Tree is a book about the childhood of a young Cherokee. At four years old, Little Tree's parents died and he therefore chooses to live with his grandparents. During the time he stayed with them, he learned The Way of the Cherokee. Being such a young child, he was ladled with heavy responsibilites. His granpa soon became his mentor in his quest for the knowledge he greatly seeked. It was only when his familar family and friends departed, that he truly aquired the basics of the Cherokee life. When his grandparents died, he learned that he was truly a Cherokee, since he could still feel them in the wind and sense them in the mountains. Overall, I would say that the book is definatly one you should consider reading if you are an outdoor enthusiast.
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Summary: Grandpa's Trade
Review: The Education of Little Tree is a very good book. I would have to say that it is one of the better books I have read. I gave this book 5 stars because I believe any book that is able to make me want to read it deserves 5 stars. The Education of Little Tree is wrote in the first person narrative which makes it feel like you are right there next to Grandpa and Little Tree while they are making moonshine. I feel it is important that the author wrote this book in first person because I don't feel that you would get the proper experience from the book if it was wrote any other way. So I can say that this book deserves the ABBY award and any other awards it might recieve.
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Summary: I focused on the book, not the author.
Review: The Education of Little Tree is presented as the autobiography of the author, but it is a fictional story of a 5-year-old orphan boy named Little Tree who is raised by his full Cherokee Grandma and his half Cherokee Grandpa in their small mountain home during the depression.
The Education of Little Tree was originally published by Delacorte Press in 1977 and reprinted in 1986 by the University of New Mexico Press. The author, Asa Carter, adopted the pseudonym, Bedford Forest Carter, when he started his career as a writer in 1970 at the age of 45.
Carter is an engaging storyteller who draws his themes of courage, honor, kinship, and blood feud from his knowledge of the Civil War and his Cherokee heritage. Because Carter falsely claimed his book was an autobiography, the reader may wonder what else in the book is false. For example, how do we know if he wrote accurately about the Cherokee's history or life style?
Most of Little Tree's education takes place at his grandparent's small farm, where his Grandma (Bonnie Lee) and Grandpa (Wales) not only teach Little Tree that they love him, they teach him "The Way" of the Cherokee. His Grandpa explains one aspect of "The Way" by saying, "Take only what ye need. When ye take the deer, do not take the best. Take the smaller and the slower and then the deer will grow stronger and always give you meat." Quote from page 9.
His half-Scottish Grandpa also teaches Little Tree how to run a whiskey still, a trade his Grandpa's Scottish ancestors practiced for over 100 years. His Grandpa believes that Little Tree needs to learn a trade and whiskey making is the only trade his Grandpa can teach him. Their still is their only source of cash, since the European settlers have forcibly taken almost all of the land the Cherokee once occupied in seven southern states.
Little Tree's Grandpa believes it is important for him to know the history of the Cherokee. He tells him about the 18,000 members of the tribe who were forced by the US government in 1838 to abandon their family farms and walk the 900 mile "Trail of Tears" from Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee to the "Cherokee Nation" in Oklahoma. They were forced to walk during the four coldest months of the year and at least one fifth died of starvation and exposure.
The tribal members at the time of the "Trail of Tears" were not nomadic savages but a people who built roads, schools and churches, had a system of representational government, and were farmers and cattle ranchers. Many Cherokee, like Little Tree's great Grandma, had intermarried with European settlers.
The 18,000 who were forced to walk the "Trail of Tears" to Oklahoma were part of the 100,000 Indians forced to give up their homes and lands to European settlers and move west of the Mississippi. Of course the "Cherokee Nation" the US government promised the Cherokee was only briefly established in Oklahoma before white land hunters broke it up.
Little Tree's ancestors didn't trust the US government, so they were among the one thousand Cherokee who hid out in the Smokey Mountains while the Cherokee were being gathered up to walk to Oklahoma. Little Tree's Grandpa frequently reminds him to never trust a politician.
When Little Tree's grandparents teach him how to outwit government bureaucrats, Christian Missionaries, and big city mobsters, the humor is slapstick comedy. When they read and discuss the classics of Western Literature around their fire at night, their comments are insightful and amusing.
The beautiful descriptions of the "Cherokee Hills" illustrate their tremendous love, reverence, and respect for their land. The following, from page 131, is Little Tree's description of one morning when he was on the top of a mountain.
"There is not anything like dawn from the top of the high mountain.¼ The sky was a light gray, and the birds getting up for the new day made fuss and twitter in the trees. Away across a hundred miles, the mountaintops humped like islands in the fog that floated below us.¼Above the rim of the farthest mountain, on the end of the world, a pink streak whipped across, a paintbrush swept a million miles across the sky.¼The mountain rim looked like it had caught fire; then the sun cleared the trees. It turned the fog into a pink ocean, heaving and moving down below."
The author, Asa Earl Carter was born in Alabama in 1925. Carter did not become an orphan at age five, nor did his grandparents raise him, but Carter did grow up in the same area and during the same time period as the hero of his story, Little Tree. The story Carter wrote about Little Tree is clearly not Carter's autobiography, but he writes with love, understanding and compassion about the Cherokee. Carter description of Little Tree's life with his grandparents made me wonder how many of the readers of the book wish they could have had such loving grandparents.
Although Carter's book is fiction, The Education of Little Tree describes in detail the incredible strength, tender compassion, high intelligence, fearless courage and delightful humor Little Tree's grandparents exhibit as they work hard to survive under difficult circumstances. I wonder if Carter wants his readers to accept his description of Little Tree's grandparents as a description of the Cherokee as a tribe. If so, he has paid the Cherokee a tremendous compliment.
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Summary: My feelings about this book
Review: The Education of Little Tree Review
This novel, The Education of Little Tree, is about a 5 years old Cherokee boy named Little Tree who has to go live with his grandparents. Living with his grandparents in a cabin, in the woods taught the way of life and how to survive in the wilderness. This whole book is about his life with his grandparents as he grows up.
I think this is a great book that everyone should read. This book will make you laugh at some points, but will also make you cry at others. This book made me laugh when Little Tree and Granpa were looking for Mr. Chunk and Mr. slick in the woods. This book also made me sad when Granpa is telling the story about the farm in the clearing. I also like this book because it's very descriptive and well written. The author wrote this novel with great detail. You will be able to imagine and see every thing the characters are doing. The author puts so many details into this book so you know exactly what something or someone looks like. The author really made the characters come to life with the details about their personalities and about their outer appearance. In one part of the book the author explains an extremely detailed scene where Granpa and Little Tree are spending the night under the star-filled sky with a full moon and fog over the mountains in the distance. When I read that scene I felt I was right there under the stars with Granpa and Little Tree. This is an exciting novel that everyone should look into reading. This book is one of the best books I've ever read.
Rating:
Summary: What I Learned From Little Tree
Review: Unlike the reader from LA, I fail to see why the University of Mexico Press should feel obligated to "alert" the reader of Forrest Carter's ugly past. I think that removing the "True Story" subtitle was all that had to be done. After finding out about Carter's hideous background, I read the book backwards and was relieved to find no hidden racist manifestos or prayers to Satan. When reading the book frontwards what I discovered was a potentially life-changing, hilarious, sad and ultimately uplifting tale that left me convinced of the universal beauty of the human spirit. As far as racial and cultural issues go, this book - if anything - made me even more understanding of different cultures and more sensitive to the background of Native Americans. In fact, I was so inspired after I turned over the last page, that I hastily filled up all of the blank pages at the end with my own reflections. I remember exclaiming to a friend who walked by that I had just finished one of the best books I had ever read. Of course I felt somewhat betrayed when I first learned the truth behind the book's author (this morning). I was also very disappointed - and still am - that such a wonderfully inspiring plot and cast of characters never actually graced the often-uninspiring "real world" in which we live. But then I looked back at the notes I had written upon completing the book. My first thought had been "As a society we need to understand and tolerate our differences." The irony here - that a former KKK leader had inspired these notes - did not escape me. Rather, I discovered that I was still learning from "Little Tree." If even the most ugly and evil people can harbor inside them a potential to inspire strangers to understand and even "kin" each other despite our differences, then isn't there hope for the human race? Society today is sick with racism and disrespect for each other and for nature. We need to change that, and reading "Little Tree" is as good a first step as any. Many famous writers - while troubled or despicable as individuals - have still managed to pass down priceless bits of beauty or wisdom that have touched and will continue to touch the lives of millions of readers in generations to come. The University of Mexico Press could always change the publisher's note on the back cover to: "Former KKK leader lies about his past." Heck, they could even insert an author's picture of old Forest in a white hood burning a cross. They could. But all that would happen is less people would read "Little Tree" and, unfortunately, miss out on a great lesson in tolerance, love and understanding. "The Education of Little Tree" is masterpiece; you will laugh a lot, cry some, and leave it feeling like you have gained more wisdom than many people will gain in a lifetime.
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Summary: LIVING IN HARMONY WITH MEN AND NATURE
Review: Where does one start to describe this extraordinary book--a literary Sleeper which defies the usual genre classification, whose autobiographical storyline transcends the mere Depression years' upbringing of a young Indian boy? The 21 chapters encompass and celebrate the meaning of Life itself--which is made more poignant by the inevitability of Death itself. They focus on developing a sense of self worth and personal dignity, valuing family, reducing stress when cultures clash and appreciating man's role in nature. Not trendy topics in this frantic, high-tech world, but then eternal truths don't need to compete for glitzy attention; they will wait quietly for eventual resepct. Five-year-old Little Tree goes to live with his Indian grandparents--mountain folk who exist on the fringe of a white settlement in the southeast--when he is orphaned. His education consists of: Indian lore and learning THE WAY, the history of the Cherokee nation and post Civil War hardships. He studies the Dictionary and struggles through the Classics with his literate grandmother; he learns basic arithmetic from a Jewish pedlar. But this smart lad absorbs much more in his three years on the mountain, which are lovingly detailed: honest lessons from Nature, bad lessons from callous and ignorant whites, good truths from generous and caring native Americans who all contribute to his complete education. Best of all, he studies that persecuted but ever-popular "trade" of distilling corn whiskey from his wise grandfather! This book quite simply offers the reader a little bit of everything: humor, history, wisdom, political atrocity, wit, self-sacrifice, bigotry, coping with sorrow and failure, internal growth, Indian ideals, pride in family and resepct for Nature. The plot is a bit thin in the first chapters, as the author shares his childhood reminiscences. But it gradually dawns on us that this book can not be evaluated as other novels; it stands alone, as do the Native Americans, clinging to their traditions in the face of mockery from "civilization." Little Tree emerges as a young man with a strong sense of Family, pride in his heritage, deep-rooted connections with Nature, and faith in the hereafter. He has learned enough to survive in the white man's world, but will always treasure his mountain roots. An introspective read which will touch your heart, which you will never forget.
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