Barbara's Reviews > Baba's Peach Tree

Stunning color-saturated digital illustrations complement a gently told story [3.5 for me!] about a father and his daughter. While she heads to school each day, he goes off to work at various jobs. The two of them live in a old stone house in China, and one of the best parts of the place is the peach tree in the back yard. The narrator describes how she eats the peaches when they're ripe and that her father saves the best peaches for her while selling all the rest. She plants the pits deep in the soil and makes a wish each time. Readers can almost taste the juicy fruit from the descriptions in the text as well as feeling their hearts drop when the tree no longer bears fruit. They move to the city, and then years later, she and her father return to their former home. To her delight, the meadow behind the house is filled with peach trees, the result of all those peach pits she buried after eating the fruit her father gave her. The lyrical text is moving and contemplative, describing in simple terms the hunger and loneliness the girl felt when her father was away on a job and the wonder at finding a veritable orchard growing behind the house. The notion of sacrifices made so that the next generation can benefit is woven throughout the story, making it particularly poignant and relatable.