The Education of Little Tree

I finished The Education of Little Tree: A True Story By: Forrest Carter. This is an autobiography of a 5 year old Cherokee boy in the 1930's. (I absolutely CANNOT recommend this book for children).

His parents die at the being of the book, and against the wishes of other family members, his aged grandparents take him to the mountains to live with them. They live a simple life in the Cherokee way. They love and respect the nature around them and try to live in harmony with it, only taking what they need, and even then, trying not to take nature's strongest, but always the weakest.

This is a great book as to the in-site it gives to the thinking and ways of one Cherokee family, and perhaps many more of that day. It is very tragic to read from the perspective of one small child of the way he realizes others view their way of life. He is able to see beauty and calm in the way his grandparents live, even though others criticise and belittle it.

His grandmother home schools him by checking out a wide variety of classic literature and biographies from the library. She also teaching him words by having him memorize the dictionary words. A family friend visits them later on and is impressed with his education and adds to it by teaching him how to do sums.

One striking thing his grandfather discusses with him, as I mentioned, is how they only take what they need and then only the weakest of that part of nature. The exception to this is the bee's honey he explains:

And he laughed, "On Ti-bi, the bee, stores more than he can use...and so he is robbed by the bear, and the 'coon...and the Cherokee. It is so with people who store and fat themselves with more than their share. They will have it taken from them. And there will be wars over it...and they will make long talks, trying to hold more than their share. They will say a flag stands for their right to do this...and men will die because of the words and the flag...but they will not change the rules of The Way.

Little Trees impression of Christianity is soured early on by the man he calls "Christian". Little Tree had earned some money, had been saving it up for a gift for his Granma, when a man who says he's a Christian man offers to sell him a small calf. The calf is so sickly, that it dies before they even make it home. Granpa cuts it open and shows Little Tree that its liver was very diseased. Thus, this is the opinion of Little Tree from then on of Christians. His church experience only proves his theory in his mind.

Near the end, the government comes and takes him away from his grandparents. Their reasoning is that Granpa is apart of illegal activity of producing moonshine (which he is and Little Tree is apart of). They take Little Tree along way away. Since this is during the depression and the government actually has no money to care for Little Tree, they sign him over to a church orphanage. The overseer and teacher of the orphanage see him as an evil pagan, and are very gruff and mean to him. At one point during class, a teacher shows the students a picture of some deer and asks what they think is going on in the picture. Some respond and the teacher tells them they are wrong and then tells them what she has determined is the correct answer. Little Tree says they are all wrong and from his large experience with wild animals tell them they are mating. The teacher is outraged and takes him to the Reverend, telling the Reverend that he said vile and disgusting things. The Reverend beats him very very severely and tells him to stay in him room and never to go to class again. Little Tree is crushed and longs more than ever to return home. His grandfather comes to talk to the Reverend, who gladly releases him back to his grandfather.

Little Tree gladly returns back to his home with Granpa. Some years go by and Granma and Granpa each die, and Little Tree sets out for "The Nations" on his own.

As I read this book, I couldn't help but feel the way the students in Blue Like Jazz by: Donald Miller felt about the things people have done to others in the name of "Christianity" down through history. In that book, the students want to find away to be a witness for Christ in an environment where only a handful of them even claim to be believers in Christ. They come up with the idea to have a confession booth out in the middle of campus on the biggest party weekend of the year. The catch is that the students who come think they are coming to confess all the sinful acts they have committed during the weekend, but instead those running the booth begin to confess and ask forgiveness for all of the things people USING the name "Christians" have done to mankind. They ask forgiveness for slavery and the Crusades and many other things.

As I read The Education of Little Tree, I wanted to apologize to the Cherokee and many other nations for people treating them like animals instead of persons created in the image of God, for them taking more than they needed like the bee, and for thinking that other societies' ways are more right than theirs and therefore they needed to be changed and corralled. I wanted to tell them I am convicted about how greedy even I am with God's creation which he has provided to care for us, but we in turn ravage. I wanted to tell them about Jesus and how much he loved and cared for "the least of these" and wanted them to come to him. But mostly I wanted to weep for the ways "Christians" defamed the name of Christ, when our only purpose in life is to Glorify God and love others as ourselves.