The book I read is called Wish Tree by Kathrine Applegate and illustrated by Charles Santoso. The main characters of the book are Red who is the Wish Tree and Bongo the crow, Samar who lives in the green house, and Stephen who lives in the blue house.
In the beginning of the book we sees that Red sees Samar’s family being picked on because they are Muslim. Samar’s family and Stephens family do not talk to each other. Samar has no friends, so she puts a wise on the Wish Tree and wished for a friend. Then later Bongo gave her a key necklace. Samar stared siting by Red at night because she was lonely and enjoyed being outside with nature and every night the baby opossums would come out to play with her.
In the middle of the book we find out that Francesca wants to cut down Red because she is tired of dealing with Red’s roots destroying stuff and she hates undoing the wishes each year. We see that some kid carved the word “leave” in Red’s bark facing Samar’s house. This makes Samar’s family wants to leave to find a safe place to live. Red thinks that she can help Samar make a friend. So she hatches a plan but she will need Bongos help.
In the end of the book Samar finds out that the key necklace goes to Meave’s journal which is Francesca’s great great grandmother who is the one who put the first wish on wish tree. Then on the day that Red was supposed to be cut down all of the animals left but right before they started cutting down Red a baby opossum named Flash ran up Red and then the rest of the animals followed Flash. This meant that they should not cut Red down because it was housing animals.
I think it would be hard being Samar because she is always being picked on and nobody likes her. My favorite part of the book is when they read Meave’s journal which stopped Red from being cut down in the future, because Francesca realizes that it is important to family.
I would recommend this book to people who like adventure books with animals in it.