45 pages • 1 hour read
Katherine ApplegateWishtree
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Red
Red is the 216-year-old northern oak tree who is the tale’s protagonist and first-person narrator. Red identifies as “they” and uses this pronoun for all trees who are both male and female. Red’s voice blends gently wry wisdom with genuine generosity, openness, and compassion. Red is also the only character to whom the reader receives full access to. Red also fleshes out the other characters through Red’s own impressions and assertions. Red’s secure place as the story’s sole narrator, and Applegate’s refusal to punctuate the tree’s voice with any human ones, unseats the idea of human supremacy. It is not human wisdom, but Red’s wisdom that is the beating heart of the narrative. By keeping the tree as the tale’s only fully-developed character and narrator, Applegate enjoins the reader to examine preconceptions about both the natural world and the human one.
Red has their own preconceptions as well—one of which is adhering to the natural world rule that trees and animals never speak in front of humans for safety reasons. When Red senses that Samar, an immigrant character who’s bullied, needs help, Red breaks this rule. Red puts their own safety at risk to help someone else, despite Red’s owner intending to chop Red down. Red continues their support of Samar’s place in the neighborhood, and Red’s actions ultimately bear fruit—Samar’s family decides to stay, and Red’s owner has a change of heart.
Bongo
Bongo is Red’s foil. While Red is an incurable optimist and a passive observer of the affairs of humans, Bongo is an outspoken pessimist possessed of an active and mischievous nature. Bongo wants to poop on people and caw at them, while Red, a 216-year-old tree whose roots sprawl into the earth, lets things go. Bongo is a small bird, free to fly and flit above the earth, but remains in her friend’s branches when a chainsaw threatens to fell Red. The two characters’ foiled characteristics are the perfect premise for their friendship within this tale about tolerance, acceptance, and compassion. By casting the narrator’s best friend as their opposite, Applegate asserts that even the most diametrically-opposed entities can find common ground. But more than that, Red and Bongo’s friendship finds its strength in the fact that each individual not only embraces the other, but fully embraces and celebrates their own identity. Although Bongo is Red’s best friend, and Red sees all of the bird’s beautiful and compelling characteristics, Red does not wish to be more like Bongo. Red even says that they would not trade any aspect of their existence in order to be a bird. Through this conceit, Applegate forms the message that self-acceptance is just as important as acceptance of others during the journey toward love and compassion.
Samar
Samar is a 10-year-old Muslim girl with dark hair and a sad, traumatic look about her. She is ostracized at school because she and her family are Muslim. Her family is also the target of the teenage vandal who scrawls “LEAVE” into Red’s trunk, and she is occasionally followed home by a band of bullies. Despite all of this, Samar continues to hope for a friend—she ties her wish onto one of Red’s branches. She is also the one who fully listens to Red’s story and then takes the steps to use the key gifted to her by Bongo to open Maeve’s diary, therefore saving Red’s life by reminding Francesca of her own family legacy. This is due in part to Samar’s special relationship with the natural world (animals trust her), but also to her openness and hopefulness as a person. Samar functions to essentially put a human face to the victims of bigotry. She is an innocent child with hopes and dreams—and strengths—of her own. Through her character, Applegate enjoins her reader to treat all human beings with the dignity and compassion that they deserve.
Stephen
Stephen is Samar’s neighbor. It’s clear that his parents take a much more passive attitude toward Samar and her family than Stephen does—they prefer to stay out of the commotion caused by the xenophobic and Islamophobic harassment that the family endures, and do not speak to Samar’s parents. It is Stephen who eventually befriends Samar through Red’s intervention. But he does take it upon himself to enlist the help of his entire class, and then the entire school, to use Wishing Day to make sure that Samar and her family feel and know that those harassing them are outliers. Stephen is the lone human who takes the most deliberate steps to counter the atmosphere of hatred and fear that threatens to overtake the entire community. Through his characterization, Applegate solidifies her message that children possess more wisdom and bravery than adults.
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By Katherine Applegate
