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The Miracle Tree
After twenty years, Hanako, a victim of Nagasaki, is reunited at Christmas time with her mother and husband, because of a special pine tree
30 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1985
11 people want to read
About the author
Christobel Mattingley
68 books12 followersChristobel Mattingley has been writing since she was eight years old and had her first pieces published in the children's pages of magazines and newspapers. Her first book, The Picnic Dog, was published in 1970, when she had three young children. While they were growing up she worked as a librarian in schools and in a teachers' college. She has been self-employed as a writer since 1974 and has travelled widely in Australia and overseas, speaking in schools and libraries. Christobel Mattingley has published over 30 books for children. Some of her works have been translated into other languages, have won various awards in Australia and the USA, and have been made into films for ABC Television. For most of the 1980s she worked with Aboriginal people and researched the history Survival in Our Land. In 1990 she received the Advance Australia Award for Service to Literature, and in 1996 she was made a Member of the Order of Australia for service to literature, particularly children's literature, and for community service through her commitment to social and cultural issues. No Gun for Asmir received a High Commendation in the Australian Human Rights Awards of 1994.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
November 28, 2020
I cry for the brutality of war, the horror of loss, the lasting destruction and the years lost. And the culmination of the magic and miracle of Christmas in the gifts of Christ and his ministry of reconciliation.
January 24, 2021
so beautiful
November 9, 2015
Remembering the Nagasaki atomic bomb and its survivors
This is a story of a family torn apart by war includes the horror of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, again a story based on real accounts of survivors The Miracle Tree (1985, illustrated with delicacy by the formerly American artist Marianne Yamaguchi).
During World War 2 in Imperial Japan, young army draftee, Taro, is separated from his wife, Hanako. He joins the Imperial Japanese Army: she is sent to Nagasaki and disappears.
When Taro returns after the war, searching for his beautiful bride, he describes her to people, hoping they will recognise his description and help him find her: “Her skin is like a camellia petal, her hair shines like a crow’s wing, and her eyes are like pools in the sun”. But he is told, “No one is beautiful who has suffered atomic blast”.
He begins a lonely life in the shattered ruins of Nagasaki, clearing away the death and destruction, then working as a gardener.
Over many years he plants and then tends one new pine tree to decorate the devastated land near a ruined church.
He is, unknowingly, watched by an old lady who is now searching desperately for the daughter she had cast aside for having dared to marry without her mother’s approval.
He is watched also by a silent sorrowing woman who believes her husband and mother are both dead, but no longer knows who she is.
Twenty years later these three sad, but persistently hopeful people find unexpected connections one Christmas.
The ending of this story may seem predictable to an alert reader, but it is nonetheless deeply (!) touching. (How can it not be?)
Mattingley has given the sparse words the direct polished clarity of a psalm or carol: it is a prose poem of reconciliation and recovery.
The unhappy gardener sees, without understanding, that the needles of the little pine tree he is tending, “were as smooth as a camellia petal, with a sheen like a crow’s wing. But it was silent unless the wind blew, and then its voice was only the merest whisper”.
The searching mother helps to rebuild a church that had been destroyed by the atomic bomb. She folds origami paper cranes – a symbol of hope in Japan, and the subject of another classic book about the aftermath of the two atom bombs, Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, by American author Eleanor Coerr, and illustrated by Marianne Yamaguchi (1977) as an offering for the well-being of her daughter.
The lonely woman writes poems about the little tree and the passing of time.
All three coincidentally but very plausibly come together in the Nagasaki church rebuilt from the rubble of the once empty bomb-site. Weakened to death by the effects of radiation and grief, the woman looks at the figure of the baby in the Christmas crib scene, longing, “for the baby she would never have”, but reunited at last with her two loved ones. She offers her poems, now folded into paper cranes “patterned with pain and love, suffering and rejoicing”, to the outstretched empty hands of the figure of the child. The last words are “the prayer which people everywhere feel on Christmas day and every day, Let peace prevail on earth”.
Though the simple words, carefully shaped phrases, and profoundly moving events read like a poetic Hans Christian Andersen fable, of bitter survival, hope, peace and redemption after horrendous disaster, it is a true story and all the more powerful because of its inner truth.
Beautifully illustrated by Marianne Yamaguchi
Very highly recommended!!
John Gough – Deakin University (retired) – jagough49@gmail.com
This is a story of a family torn apart by war includes the horror of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, again a story based on real accounts of survivors The Miracle Tree (1985, illustrated with delicacy by the formerly American artist Marianne Yamaguchi).
During World War 2 in Imperial Japan, young army draftee, Taro, is separated from his wife, Hanako. He joins the Imperial Japanese Army: she is sent to Nagasaki and disappears.
When Taro returns after the war, searching for his beautiful bride, he describes her to people, hoping they will recognise his description and help him find her: “Her skin is like a camellia petal, her hair shines like a crow’s wing, and her eyes are like pools in the sun”. But he is told, “No one is beautiful who has suffered atomic blast”.
He begins a lonely life in the shattered ruins of Nagasaki, clearing away the death and destruction, then working as a gardener.
Over many years he plants and then tends one new pine tree to decorate the devastated land near a ruined church.
He is, unknowingly, watched by an old lady who is now searching desperately for the daughter she had cast aside for having dared to marry without her mother’s approval.
He is watched also by a silent sorrowing woman who believes her husband and mother are both dead, but no longer knows who she is.
Twenty years later these three sad, but persistently hopeful people find unexpected connections one Christmas.
The ending of this story may seem predictable to an alert reader, but it is nonetheless deeply (!) touching. (How can it not be?)
Mattingley has given the sparse words the direct polished clarity of a psalm or carol: it is a prose poem of reconciliation and recovery.
The unhappy gardener sees, without understanding, that the needles of the little pine tree he is tending, “were as smooth as a camellia petal, with a sheen like a crow’s wing. But it was silent unless the wind blew, and then its voice was only the merest whisper”.
The searching mother helps to rebuild a church that had been destroyed by the atomic bomb. She folds origami paper cranes – a symbol of hope in Japan, and the subject of another classic book about the aftermath of the two atom bombs, Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, by American author Eleanor Coerr, and illustrated by Marianne Yamaguchi (1977) as an offering for the well-being of her daughter.
The lonely woman writes poems about the little tree and the passing of time.
All three coincidentally but very plausibly come together in the Nagasaki church rebuilt from the rubble of the once empty bomb-site. Weakened to death by the effects of radiation and grief, the woman looks at the figure of the baby in the Christmas crib scene, longing, “for the baby she would never have”, but reunited at last with her two loved ones. She offers her poems, now folded into paper cranes “patterned with pain and love, suffering and rejoicing”, to the outstretched empty hands of the figure of the child. The last words are “the prayer which people everywhere feel on Christmas day and every day, Let peace prevail on earth”.
Though the simple words, carefully shaped phrases, and profoundly moving events read like a poetic Hans Christian Andersen fable, of bitter survival, hope, peace and redemption after horrendous disaster, it is a true story and all the more powerful because of its inner truth.
Beautifully illustrated by Marianne Yamaguchi
Very highly recommended!!
John Gough – Deakin University (retired) – jagough49@gmail.com
January 2, 2014
I discovered this gem of a book at the Pleasant Grove Library. "In the city of Nagasaki on the Japanese island of Kyushu three people lived for twenty years hoping for a miracle." Thus begins the story of a family that is torn apart by WW2 and how they are reunited by hope, forgiveness, and a little pine tree.
Reading this book helped me feel the spirit of Christmas all the more because I'm in the US; the writer is Australian and the book is set in Japan.
The black and white illustrations are a beautiful and tender addition to this lovely story.
Reading this book helped me feel the spirit of Christmas all the more because I'm in the US; the writer is Australian and the book is set in Japan.
The black and white illustrations are a beautiful and tender addition to this lovely story.
May 13, 2014
A nice book about a Japanese solider, his wife and her mother and how WWII split them up and a tree reunites them. It's a little text heavy and discusses the atomic bomb and some of it's effects. I'd recommend it for ages 4-6. It's good for narrative skill and vocabulary.
November 17, 2015
The Miracle Tree was awarded the Christian Children's Book of the Year in 1985 in Australia. An award that seems to have since disappeared.
It is illustrated by Marianne Yamaguchi.
It is illustrated by Marianne Yamaguchi.
March 10, 2014
not a typical "Christmas" story, but still one about hope and joy after great loss and pain. Kind of like a picture book/novella. The layers in it make it magical and satisfying.
March 25, 2021
This is such a beautiful story about a family who reunites after 20 years. Set during and after the attack on Nagasaki, Japan, it's a story that is full of hope and makes me cry every time I read it.
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September 10, 2013I picked this one up in our school library. It is a truly beautiful story.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews