Daddy's Climbing Tree

by C.S. Adler

Jessica, age eleven, refuses to believe the reality of her father's death when he is killed in a hit-and-run accident. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0395630320
• ISBN13: 9780395630327
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: Clarion Books
• Length: 134 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.8" x 8.6"
• Age Range: 10 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 5 to 7

Customer Reviews

A child's grieving

Before you can grieve, you need to accept. Eleven-year-old Jessica isn't good at that. She hasn't accepted moving away from the family homestead,and is determined not to like her new bright modern home an hour's drive away from her friends. When her father is killed by a hit-and-run driver, she refuses to believe he's gone. She closes herself off from the busy-ness of grief, the details of the funeral where someone who didn't even know her father speaks about his life. She plays with her friends without letting them talk about her dad, and tells her young brother Tycho that Dad isn't really gone. He doesn't really believe her, but he adores his big sister and wants the same thing she wants: for Dad to come walking in the door. Jessica decides to take Tycho and hike to her old house, where Daddy's Climbing Tree, an enormous beech stands. After many adventures, she and Tycho reach the tree. Carved into its trunk are the initials of those who have climbed it. Jessica goes higher than she's ever gone, pushing herself to the limit, not caring that she might not have the strength to climb down, because maybe she doesn't want to climb down. If she does, she'll have to believe Dad is truly gone. I give this book five stars (and five handkerchiefs) for showing in an unsentimental way what it is to have your world pulled out from under you.