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sam_k_ 's review for:

Tree. Table. Book by Lois Lowry
4.5
“Girl, you have done it again, constantly raising the bar for us all and doing it flawlessly.” - Michelle Obama

This is the third Lois Lowry book I’ve read (after Number the Stars in 3rd grade and The Giver in 7th grade) and she has never missed. 

The book is told from the first person point of view of Sophie Winslow, a quirky 11 year old girl, who is friends with Sophie Gershowitz, an 88 year old woman who lives across the street. 

Lowry does a masterful job at writing this child protagonist—kids are hard to write properly because they often know more than most adults give them credit for while also being clueless about things that adults know from experience—and although I am not a child, I think Lowry hits this balance pretty effectively. 

This book is probably enjoyable as a kid, but it’s even more heartbreaking to read as an adult where you can “read between the lines” almost of what Sophie W is hearing and experiencing while Sophie W herself is having a hard time understanding parts of it. 

The only complaint I have is minor, and that’s that Lowry has this story set in the present and she makes a point of trying to not incorporate technology and while she does explain the “why”, I still think it might’ve been easier for her to set the book one decade earlier and it would’ve felt more authentic to the time. She also uses some outdated words every once in a while that took me out of the book a little bit. Both of these were mostly in the beginning and not often enough or noticeable enough to dock the book too much, especially when I got used to it, but just something I noticed.

Overall though it’s a heartbreakingly well done book that I definitely recommend. 
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