I remember having a conversation with a friend about the challenges faced by each generation. “Our grandparents had to work hard – physically,” I said. “My grandmother has so many stories of how difficult it was to make dosa batter and things like that. Our parents had financial difficulties, more than anything else. What about us?”
“We have emotional and intellectual issues,” my friend said, thoughtfully, “basically about who we are and what we want from life.”
In that sense, I think The Worry Tree reaches out to the children of this generation. Children who are worried. Children who sometimes don’t realise that problems around them aren’t their fault.
I loved the idea of the book, reading page after page with a half-smile. I love the pages at the end where the child who owns the book can write down his or her own worries, hang them up on the worry tree, so to speak.
I took about an hour to read it and finished with a pleasant feeling of having read an interesting book. Perhaps it was not one that was meant to be ‘enjoyed’. Rather it was a story for a child who could identify with Julie and find a friend, or maybe even a kindred spirit in there.
Stories like that are important. It’s important to get help from strangers without having asked for it. It’s important to have a Worry Tree to hang up your woes.
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