Unique to Paper, Essay Example

Introduction

Ida B. Applewood was a very talented and resilient young lassie with the heart of a big lion and determination that would not stop. She and her favourite friends loved to play, draw, invent and talk just like any typical children her age would. This wonderful story depicts love, trials, tribulations, disparity, accomplishment and zeal. Applewood was known for keeping things organized and under control until a storm hit her life and she was faced with decisions to make. Was it possible for her to come out with a winning smile and attitude?  Ida B. grew up on an apple orchard in Wisconsin as an only child. She was smart, imaginative and full of life. Ida B. even names her favourite apple trees Beulah, Pastel and Henry VIII which symbolizes great vision and love for her imaginary friends. When her parents’ are forced to sell the orchard trees, the love of her life, Ida B. rebels and takes solace in a fourth grade teacher eventually and lives to tell about her experiences.

Body of Paper

There is great use of symbolism in the fact that Ida B. talks to the trees. She names them which particularly show she has grown fond of them and treats them as friends.  Ida B. even spoke to the trees to find information of the storm coming but no one believed her when she said the trees could talk; instead they mocked and made fun of her with various rude gestures. Still with the storm coming Ida B. was sure to finish her regular drawings which are extremely important to her. Her drawings symbolize expressions of her vivid imagination and allow her to express her reality of the world as she sees it.  Ida B. would often express the idea that she thought the earth was a caretaker of the people. She thoroughly believed in the forces of nature. She saw nature as being supreme to man and that is why she often found solace in the orchard trees. With this in mind, she was extremely benevolent when her parents’ were forced to sell the apple orchard for financial reasons.

Ida B.’s mother and father often pretend to not have the same beliefs as the young child but they do actually share the same principles of life as her. Her mother and father believe in creative driving forces and desires to motivate a person to achieve the best they can be. They did not always like the idea Ida B. fancied speaking to the trees but they came to realize the importance of her relationship in the orchards. She uses her parents’ support to go through life with determination, strength and a flair for adventure. Even though her parents’ did not always agree with her ideas and comprehend the meanings of her intentions they never doubted her ability to create positive forces in her life and achieve positive things as a result of her ideas. Hence her parents’ always supported Ida B.’s ideas and that is what made her so successful. Her teacher, cat and dog are also very avid supporters of Ida B. She has a very strong support system all around her throughout the book. Her fourth grade teacher in the pubic school system is the one lady that was able to touch Ida B. emotionally to break down the emotional wall she had built up after being forced to move from the apple orchard and forced to attend public school against her wishes.

Ida B. tells her father on two particular occasions in the book on pages 32 and 244 that the earth takes care of us. She means that people are derived from the earth and the trees are nature; further the trees are her friends and they will take care of the people they love. On page 38 of the book Ida B. professes that her idea of fun is organization, preparing to save the world and preventing disaster. Ida B. is a very intelligent child that realizes even as a fourth grader that the world possesses enemies that can be avoided with careful contemplation.

Ida B. professes actions of being in tune with nature throughout the book. She firmly believes that the stars, the trees and the brook are in touch with her even if she does not contact each one of them. These forces of nature are constantly affecting her character and choices in her personal life, school life and her social life. She maintains a very curious nature but calm personality due to the fact she has communed with nature. Often her friends take the viewpoint that she must be ‘crazy’ but her family nor I as the writer believes that. I feel that she is a special child that is very creative and able to think beyond ‘black and white’.

“Ida B. has an idyllic life, being homeschooled by her loving parents and spending her days exploring their land and talking to her best friends, the mountain, the brook and, most importantly, the apple trees in her family’s orchard.” (Hannigan 2009). When Ida B.’s mother contracts cancer and the bills start pouring in, the family cannot teach her at home any longer and she is forced to go to public school. Ida B. resents this choice of her parents’ especially the idea that the parents’ had to sell their land to pay for some of the medical bills. She is too young to comprehend that the choice was not a voluntary one made by her parents’. Though she knows that her parents’ did not have anymore money, she selfishly wants to hang on to what she has known as security and the obvious in her life-her friends, the apple trees.  Ida B. is a child with a perfect life that has become unravelled by normal tribulations of family life.

Ida B. does not like change of going to public school and she certainly does not like when her parents sell off the land because the land is an avenue for her to commune with nature. Ida B. is quite comfortable with her life and does not support any change at this time. This communion is a daily activity that has been interrupted against her wishes and her whole life has been turned around. Ida B. is angry and disappointed to say the least.  Her peaces and solace is about to be yanked from under her feet. The trees brook and stars are her friends and her friends are about to go away forever in her mind. Ida B. symbolizes these physical objects with friendship, peace and security. Ida B. feels she has vehement justification to close the world off from getting close to her emotional boundaries. Ida B.’s father does not understand Ida B. for a short period of time during the book and yells at her uncharacteristic naughty behaviour after they sell off the land. He feels she is naughty and defiant when she is just retaliating because her best friends or comfort zones have just been removed. Her father later realizes that she has just lost her best friend and changes his attitude toward the situation.

Ida B. eventually develops a relationship with Ronnie which opens the door to other relationships to mend her cold and broken heart. Ida B. is determined to run the new owners off the land and feels “apologizing is like a spring cleaning” because it is something you don’t want to do but it is a duty. (Book Browse 2009). Her parents’ force her to make amends with everyone she has hurt whilst behaving in a most non-desirable character. Ida B. does so but she is not truly sincere at the time of the apology. Ida B. simply goes through the motions to pacify her parents. She is a very adventurous and spicy child but she also loves her parents and wants to obey their wishes especially the wishes of her father. She has always maintained a great relationship with her father for he has always understood her special relationship with nature during their long walks in the orchards. Her mother is supportive throughout the book but she does not possess the same level of comprehension of nature as her father does.

Ida B. finally realizes that she does not have to physically possess the earth and the mountains to possess them inside of her heart and spirit. She spent most of her early childhood ascertaining possession of the trees in the apple orchard as friends in order to complete a hole that was missing inside of her. She later learned in life that this completeness she had been searching for was found within herself.  Peace, harmony and spiritual security are found within oneself through loving oneself and others. It is a spiritual feeling rather than a substantive physical feeling. It takes a long time for Ida B. to grasp this concept.  With this revelation is when her heart and attitude changes toward a positive one. Her wonderful teacher Ms. Washington also contributes towards Ida B.’s change of heart by offering her other solutions to venting her anger in creative fashions.”(Katherine Hannigan Books 2009).

Conclusion

This book is a typical children’s book with surprise, adventure, cheer, some mystery but mostly family love and challenge of life. The book is narrated in the third person which allows the story to be told with vivid expressionism. There are particular hard times that the family endures with respect to medical bills from the ill mother that forces the family to give up their most precious asset of land which happens to be the most beloved precious possession of Ida B. The orchard trees happen to be Ida B.’s best friends of which she gives personal names.  The book teaches lessons of life of give and take and sacrifice for the love of others and sometimes that we go into situations with our eyes half way open without actually knowing that we can still accomplish our goals if we simply view them from a different perspective. Ida B. was still able to keep nature, stars and the brook within her reach but not within her possession because she learned she did not have to physically own the land to have these wonderful possessions with her for they are available within all realms of the universe if she looks far enough. Though this book is aimed at capturing the children’s audience it is a great book for young juniors to adults to read, also. The book enlightens many from the aspect it shows how resilience, determination and struggle can overcome barriers in life and helps a person to achieve success even at a very young age.

Works Cited

Hannigan, Katherine Ida B. New York, NY Harper Collins Publishing, 2004

Book Browse Reading Guides 2009 02 Nov 2009 < http://www.bookbrowse.com/reading_guides/detail/index.cfm?book_number=1471>

All Readers Katherine Hannigan Books 2009 02 Nov 2009 http://www.allreaders.com/Topics/info_29641.asp