This is an engaging story of a Cherokee boy's childhood in the 1930s. The richness of the informal education and wisdom provided by the boy's grandparents is in striking contrast to that of the white-run school the boy is subsequently forced to attend. This book was originally published as autobiographical reminiscences, but has been reclassified as fiction. Controversy surrounds this moving work. Some believe author Forrest Carter to be the late Asa Earl Carter, a white supremacist. Carter, nevertheless, could have had Cherokee heritage and still have held racist beliefs.

Part of Little Tree’s strong appeal, I suspect, is its tone of moral certainty. If Grandpa’s folksy wisdom feels a bit heavy-handed at times, it also serves as a touching reminder of a more innocent era. For young and old alike, Forrest Carter’s memoir brings alive once more, in luminously remembered detail, the shape and spirit of a world we had lost.

A Cherokee boyhood of the 1930s remembered in generous, loving detail...an unbelievably rich young life. A felicitous remembrance of a unique education.

There's humor, tragedy, tenderness, and, most of all, love....A lot of people receive a lot of education from their grandparents that schools don't offer. But few have expressed it as well as Little Tree has. Very good reading.

I cannot recall a book that has moved me from laughter to tears and back again, with the frequency that this one has....If I could have but one book this year this would be my choice, for it is a deeply felt work which satisfies and fills.