Gentle Willow: A Story for Children About Dying

Book Description

The same characters from the book "Little Tree", Amanda the Squirrel and Little Tree, reappear in a story for children who are facing death: their own, or that of a loved one. Amanda calls upon the Tree Wizards of the Forest to help Gentle Willow, who is suffering from a mysterious ailment, but the Tree Wizards are unable to help. Amanda struggles with loss, confusion, anger, and finally, hope, as she helps Gentle Willow understand and accept her death. This sensitively written story is brought to life by Chesworth's hauntingly beautiful watercolors.

Customer Reviews:

Great Great Book.......2007-07-25

I love this book. I bought this book for my 3 yr old to help explain death to him after my husband passed away. It was perfect because it explained about being sick and not being able to be fixed sometimes. This was similar to what we were going through with my husband who had cancer. Our son always knew his father has being sick and going to the doctor...so this helped to explain.

Sweet story.......2007-07-10

My daughter enjoyed the story greatly. i wouldn't say it completely gave her an understanding of death but she knows that when you die you don't come back from where ever you went. this help a lot considering my mother just passed 3 months ago and my daughter is still talking about it.

Very Sweet and Kind.......2007-03-08

This was a very sweet story. It would be best used on a child who is able to draw analogies. I am a school counselor who often deals with children in the public school setting who are not able to relate such stories to their lives. However, it is a very good book.

This book is wonderful!.......2007-02-21

My father has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and I got this book for my 9 year old daughter. It is her favorite, and I love it too. It is very gentle and calm and sweet. A story about dying and how life goes on. I love it!

Helping children deal with the pain of a terminal illness.......2002-03-04

When I first read "Gentle Willow: A Story for Children About Dying," I thought it was about preparing a child for the death of a terminally ill loved one. After all, the story tells about Amanda, a squirrel, and her friends Little Tree and Gentle Willow. One day Amanda notices that Gentle Willow looks and feels differently. Amanda becomes concerned about her friend and calls in Fixumup and Imageen the tree wizards, who check Gentle Willow and have to admit that while they can make her feel more comfortable and help her feel stronger, they cannot make her all better. The tree wizards comfort Amanda about the impending loss of her friend by explaining about the special gifts called memories.

When I finished reading this book I turned to the introduction and learned "Gentle Willow" was written for children who may not survive their illness as well as for the children who know them. I have to admit, I thought this sensitive book would also help children prepare for the death of a grandparent, or someone of any age. The basic metaphor of the caterpillars turning into butterflies applies any loved one. Dr. Mills developed this book out of an earlier effort, "Little Tree: A Story for Children with Serious Medical Problems," which reflects her specialty in storytelling as a healing process of children and adults. Obviously, this book will touch adults as well as the children for whom it was intended. The watercolor illustrations by Michael Chesworth captures the shifting tones of this tale, especially through the subtle changes on the face of Amanda, as sadness is replaced by hope through the healing power of love.

I wish your children will never have a need for such a book, but if the situation arises, I hope that you find this book.

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The Ultimate Willow Guide

Willows: The Genus Salix
Christopher Newsholme
Manufacturer: Timber Press, Incorporated
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
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Trees | Gardening & Horticulture | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0881925659

Book Description

This reprint of the 1992 hardcover offers the reader a comprehensive worldwide survey of willows (the genus Salix), extending from tiny alpine and arctic plants to the huge specimen trees found in water meadows, including information on distinguishing botanical features and a full glossary. Details are given on the origin and distribution of willows and their nomenclature, as well as on selection and cultivation for garden use. This work will be invaluable to the gardener for its practical detail and to the botanist as an excellent reference volume.

Customer Reviews:

The Ultimate Willow Guide.......2004-11-25

Chris Newsholme really knows his stuff. This is the ultimate willow book including great information on propagation, planting and maintenance. This book has so many great species and varieties, I want to start collecting now. Although I don't produce my own compost to pot up my plants, I am sure a no-soil mix from the garden center will work.
This book has it all, from the background and history of willows, to the characteristics and the many different types of willows. I would have liked a hint as to the hardiness of the plants listed, but you can't have everything all in one great book.

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At Home in the Rainforest
Diane Willow
Manufacturer: Charlesbridge Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 088106484X

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ONE NOT TO BE MISSED
A+
Memories of the way we were..
Overall a pretty good read.
Terrible writing

Pears on a Willow Tree
Leslie Pietrzyk
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0380799103
Release Date: 1999-07-06

Amazon.com

Leslie Pietrzyk's Pears on a Willow Tree starts with a recipe for pierogi and ends with one for poppy-seed cake. In between, four generations of Polish-American women talk, cook, argue, sew each other's wedding dresses, tell stories, and understand and misunderstand each other in the way that only mothers and daughters can. Starting with iron-willed Rose, who emigrates from Poland, and ending with Amy, who flees the role of her alcoholic mother's keeper, the Marchewka women enact an ancient dance of embracing and rejecting the tradition they come from. "It is the girls who keep the family alive," Rose writes to her Polish mother; but it is also true that, as she later tells her great-granddaughter, "It's impossible for a good daughter to leave; it's impossible for a good daughter to stay." Many of the chapters in Pears on a Willow Tree were first published as stories, and they sometimes hang together a trifle too neatly, with none of a novel's usual depth or range. But Pietrzyk has a nifty, uncluttered prose style and above all a keen ear for the way women really do talk. Pears on a Willow Tree is a promising debut from a writer with a gift for the enduring art of domestic portraiture.

Book Description

Pears on a Willow Tree is a multigenerational roadmap of love and hate, distance and closeness, and the lure of roots that both bind and sustain us all.

The Marchewka women are inseparable. They relish the joys of family gatherings; from preparing traditional holiday meals to organizing a wedding in which each of them is given a specific task -- whether it's sewing the bridal gown or preserving pickles as a gift to the newlyweds. Bound together by recipes, reminiscences and tangled relationships, these women are the foundation of a dignified, compassionate family--one that has learned to survive the hardships of emigration and assimilation in twentieth-century America.

But as the century evolves, so does each succeeding generation. As the older women keep a tight hold on the family traditions passed from mother to daughter, the younger women are dealing with more modern problems, wounds not easily healed by the advice of a local priest or a kind word from mother.

Amy is separated by four generations from her great-grandmother Rose, who emigrated from Poland. Rose's daughter Helen adjusted to the family's new home in a way her mother never could, while at the same time accepting the importance of Old Country ways. But Helen's daughter Ginger finds herself suffocating within the close-knit family, the first Marchewka woman to leave Detroit for the adventure of life beyond the reach of her mother and grandmother.

It's in the American West that Giner raises her daughter Amy, uprooted from the safety of kitchens perfuned by the aroma of freshly baked poppy seed cake and pierogi made by hand by generations of women. But Amy is about to realize that there may be room in her heart for both the Old World and the New.

Customer Reviews:

ONE NOT TO BE MISSED.......2007-03-09

Having read and loved Leslie Pietrzyk's second novel, A YEAR AND A DAY, I wanted to be sure and read PEARS ON A WILLOW TREE. Such a treat!

Having married into a Polish family, much of this book touched my heart and home! Such fun, such sweet people. Told from the view of four different characters, this book tells the tale of Polish immigrants and their daughters from a time spanning from 1919 to present day.

Meet Rose, her daughter Helen, her daughter Ginger, and finally, her daughter Amy. This Polish family consists of many more characters, but these ladies spanning four generations tell the tale.

Rose comes over from Poland and starts life fresh and new with her husband in Detroit, Michigan. Her letters home to her mother are full of anticipation of a good, new life in the land of hope, America. Rose takes us through her life and then the remaining three generations tell their tales.

The story moves back and forth from character to character, and from past to present and back again. However, this was not confusing. I LOVE novels where each character adds their two bits to the story. Makes for great reading.

When the women of the family gather in the kitchen gossiping, chatting, drinking coffee, eating poppy seed cake, exchaning recipes, I just wanted to pull up a chair, grab a piece of cake and a cup of coffee and join right in! The description of the Polish food will just make you HUNGRY for a good hot piece of kielbasa!! YUM!!!!!

Third generation Ginger is the "black sheep" of the family when, immediately after graduating from high school, she leaves her family, friends, and Detroit and moves to Phoenix. Ginger cannot stand the closeness of her family, how everyone knows everyone's business, and cannot stand Detroit. Ginger also has a drinking problem, which adds to her messed up life. How her moving affects her family and herself is mainly the idea of the story, but the author does a great job of blending past and present, everyone's perspective, and this equals a good book.

Read this book and then read A YEAR AND A DAY. Leslie Pietrzyk has the talent to carry off any theme, plot, situation. I am hoping for future books from her. She has THE gift.

Thanks! Pam

A+.......2007-01-13

Perfectly written! Wonderful book detailing four generations of women with roots in Poland. Each character was so real!

Memories of the way we were.........2006-12-26

Having grown up in a Polish neighborhood on Chicago's South Side with a grandma (bushia)who emigrated from the "old country", this book was like a stroll down memory lane. Grandma filled out stomachs with perogi, kluski, and kelbasa, our heads with captivating stories and our lives with unforgetable customs and rituals.

Pears on a Willow Tree is the story of four generations of Marchewka women: (mothers and daughters)Rose, Helen, Ginger and Amy....some of them seeking to assimilate yet preserve the past and it's traditions while others fight to supress and escape from those same traditions. Ultimately all of these women are trying to find that "impossible pear".

Believe me, you don't have to be Polish to love this book!

Overall a pretty good read........2006-12-08

This reviewer enjoyed this book. I can relate to Amy quite a bit. At times I would forget who was speaking and a bit confused, but I enjoyed the way it was written. Maybe the subject hits home for too many people, or maybe alcoholism is accepted in the world today, but this book had me from the beginning.

I felt the ending was a bit abrupt and wish it would have ended on a different note, but I hope to get other books from this author.

Terrible writing.......2006-02-11

If you have had any exposure to good literature, you will find this novel nearly insufferable. The symbolism is cliche, narrative style predictable and unoriginal, and the book as a whole is this woman's self-indulgent notion that the story of her family makes a good read. If she had any creative ability, she could use her family history as a starting point, but she does very little to distinguish her writing as exciting and fresh. Dull, dry, predicatable, callow, and unfortuantly a requirement from a lit professor who has insulted my eight semesters as an English student.

Average customer rating:

Selby's Best Work
Decent, but monotonous
how do we survive it
GREAT BOOK
this is just as good as his other work

The Willow Tree
Hubert Selby
Manufacturer: Bloomsbury USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 1582340285

Book Description

Bobby is young and black. He shares a cramped apartment in the south Bronx with his mother, his younger siblings and the ceaselessly scratching rats that infest the walls behind his bed. Barely a teenager, he is old beyond his years. The best thing in Bobby's life is Maria, his Hispanic friend. They are in love, and they have big plans for the summer ahead. Their lives are irrevocably shattered when a vicious Hispanic street gang attack the couple as they walk to school. With Bobby savagely beaten and Maria lying in hospital, terrified and engulfed by the pain of her badly burned face, The Willow Tree takes the reader on a volcanically powerful trip through the lives of America's dispossessed inner-city dwellers. Into this bleak and smouldering hinterland, however, Selby introduces a small but vital note of love and compassion. When Bobby's bruised and bloodied body is discovered by Moishe, an aged concentration camp survivor, an unlikely friendship begins. As Moishe slowly, painfully, reveals his own tragic story, Bobby struggles angrily with his desperate need for revenge.

Customer Reviews:

Selby's Best Work.......2006-01-26

I have read all of Selby's books, save for "Requiem for a Dream" (though I have seen Aronofsky's superb cinema treatment of it).

All of Selby's works, up until this one, contain a savagery and hatred for the injustice and pain of this world. This world view , I think was most likely brought on by the events of his own life experiences (surgeries, amputations etc).

Selby's books are some of the most visceral, terrifying, disturbing and truthful that I have ever been fortunate to come across. Though his uncompromising lyrical savegery can sometimes be hard to take.

The fable of "The Willow Tree" is in my opinion, his best book. All of his others are black places of hopelessness, dark clammy holes with no light at all, nothing but the whispering maw of destruction and despair.

The Willow Tree brings us awareness, for the first time ever in Selby's books, of the existence of hope and forgiveness, which can be used as weapons to heal the great hurts that the world can sometimes heap upon us.

This is the book I feel truly represents the most important turning point in Selby's personal journey.

Be submerged in darkness, and through your own valor and humanity emerge cleansed.

A masterwork.

FatherCrow

Decent, but monotonous.......2005-05-07

Once again, after reading "Last Exit" and "Room," I expected great things from Selby, but "Willow Tree" is not on par with the others. It has a solid storyline filled with terrible events and tragedy portrayed skillfuly, but after Maria's terrible death, the book seems to drag on about irrelevant things. If you can handle the monotony, than go ahead and give "Willow Tree" a try.

how do we survive it.......2002-12-27

Selby's first proper novel was Last Exit to Brooklyn, a searing bludgeon of a book that showed that Naturalism was alive and well, and ornerier than ever. It became celebrated in certain circles, incited several obscenity trials, was banned in many places, and generally fought the good fight. His last proper novel was Requiem for a Dream, a lacerating, anguished masterpiece that is liable to haunt one long after one reads it. That was in 1978. A collection of stories entitled Song of the Silent Snow followed; then all was still. Suddenly, twenty years later, Selby reappeared - it turns out that he had been writing The Willow Tree for all that time, and finished it only around 1998. What can a reader expect from this man after twenty years of nothing? A stunning comeback? A return to realistic form? A complete flop? Last Exit to Brooklyn redux, or something new and unprecedented? The result is, actually, a bit of all of those.

Confusion abounds, and what this book actually meant to do is not entirely clear. The Kirkus reviewer's supercilious attitude is uncalled for (one great book is more than you'll ever write, dude), but I can understand his frustration. This is the story of a thirteen-year-old black kid from the ghetto, whose girlfriend is killed by a bunch of Hispanic thugs, and who swears undying revenge. He is then found by a little old man who lives underground in a luxurious apartment, and very slowly cured of his hatred. That sounds like a sentimental fantasy, and it is one, but only to a degree. It's actually quite difficult to apply A Christmas Carol analogies, as the Kirkus reviewer does, to a book that features about ten profanities per page. In fact, Selby never altogether forsakes his ultra-realism - the scenes of poverty and desperation are evoked as powerfully as ever, the scenes where Bobby sneaks about the streets are rivetingly suspenseful, and Moishe's recollection of concentration camps is genuinely frightening. Bobby's mother only appears in a few scenes, but her all-pervasive despair is chillingly real, and the bit where Bobby sends her a letter at Moishe's behest is not only the most effective scene in the book, but one of Selby's most effective scenes ever.

But on the other hand, this is certainly no exercise in realism. Consider Moishe's luxurious apartment, which contains a workshop, an exercise room, a Jacuzzi, several fine beds, a refrigerator with a seemingly endless supply of ice cream (with chocolate sauce - Selby is determined that you clearly understand that THERE IS CHOCOLATE SAUCE in this refrigerator, and to that end repeats this fact about a thousand times), and so on. But that, actually, is not as hard to accept as the fact that Moishe apparently can produce all of this out of thin air. The book doesn't show that he has a job, or that he ever had one, and it's never explained whence he procures all the money that he doubtless spends. In addition to this, Moishe's method of raising Bobby seems to be to pamper him in luxury and ask nothing of him; the contrast between this and Bobby's old life is appropriately striking, but only until the reader starts to ask questions about what happens later. Does Moishe send Bobby to school? Does he teach him a trade? Does he even ask him to do anything? No, nowhere in the book.

And what of Bobby's revenge itself? Yes, it's for the sake of contrast that Selby had Bobby sneak out under cover of night to pursue his enemies right after the most peaceful scenes with Moishe, but this contrast is so severe as to be unconvincing. Could the thirteen-year-old kid that stared slackjawed at Moishe's tales of wartime terror, genuinely affected by them, then go out to corner some fool and proceed to cut off his ear, then return in his new clothes underground and brag about his "righteous" victory to the old man? Given all the problems with the premise that I already mentioned, it only seems completely bizarre, and not in the way it was intended to.

I suspect that Selby, after writing so many books filled with sheer hopelessness, decided to write one where the underdog finally wins one for a change. No wonder it took him so long - he clearly was unused to such a strange notion. The sick despair that filled Requiem for a Dream has been blunted to a sort of quiet sadness now, and it's actually somewhat moving to see the compassion that Selby always had for people in full light. But it's undeniable that The Willow Tree is not on the level of some of its predecessors - twenty years' gestation time notwithstanding, the book still seems muddled and unrealized. I'd welcome a kinder and gentler Selby, in theory, hoping that he'd straighten things out to himself by his next book, but from what I've read about Waiting Period, I fear that he might be losing it completely. Read The Willow Tree if you like being confused.

GREAT BOOK.......2002-06-25

The plot of this book is awesome. I love the understanding and compassion of the main characters. Some of the story is a little overly dramatic and hard to swallow, but all in all this is an enjoyable read.

this is just as good as his other work.......2002-03-26

hubert selby jnr. is far, far from a one book author, as the room, requiem for a dream and this prove. this is a deeply emotional story of a black boy severely beaten by a group of hispanics and his girlfriend left scarred when they throw lye in her face. the boy finds himself in the care of an elderly german who tends to his wounds and tries to comfort him in his grief when the boy discovers that his girlfriend has been driven to suicide because of the attack. the boy then seeks revenge on the gang, taking it in turns to track them down. the elderly german, realising that the boy is being consumed by hate tries to make him realise that love is more important by showing him the good things in life. the one downfall in this story is the repetetive use of the words crying and laughing to describe the boys relationship with the old man but as with all hubert's work, this stays with you long after you have read it and plays on your mind a lot.

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The Way of the Willow Branch
Emery Bernhard
Manufacturer: Gulliver Green
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Picture Books | Ages 4-8 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

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Looking Down

ASIN: 0152008446

Book Description

A storm rages. A branch breaks off a great willow tree and begins a fascinating journey through streams and rivers and finally out to sea. Then one day, it washes up onto a beach, weathered and smooth--now a piece of driftwood. A beachcombing boy brings it home and makes a mobile with it. This lyrical book encourages readers of all ages to observe nature and the journeys of all things in the natural world in a new and unique way. Instructions for making a mobile are included.

Dentro de la selva tropical (Spanish Books)

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Dentro de la selva tropical (Spanish Books)
Diane Willow
Manufacturer: Charlesbridge Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0881064211

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Willow Tree Shade

Manufacturer: John Cha
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 899539160X

Product Description

Impressive life story of Susan Ahn Cuddy a pioneer Korean American woman. She lived an immigrant life in the early 1900's in California and became the first Asian woman officer in the United States forces during WWII. She was the Navy's first female gunnery officer and later went on to work for US Navy Intelligence and NSA. She is the American born daughter of one of Korea's greatest patriots and follower of American democracy Dosan Ahn Chang Ho.

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Why the Willow Weeps
Marshall Izen
Manufacturer: Doubleday Books for Young Readers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0385306830
Release Date: 1992-10-01

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The Old Man and the Tree
Vicki Wisenfeld
Manufacturer: Cook Communications Ministries
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0745942318
Release Date: 2000-02-11

Book Description

Walter the craftsman had a very special willow tree. No matter how many times he removed its branches, it never failed to grow new shoots. Until one spring when there was a near disaster.

• Teaches children to be responsible and caring with others

• Reminds kids that there are consequences to actions

• Features delightful folk art

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