Tree Girl

Bolivian-born Ben Mikaelsen’s young adult fiction novel, Tree Girl (published in 2004 by HarperCollins), is an adolescent girl’s firsthand experience of the Guatemalan Civil War. The conflict was waged over several decades during the late nineteenth century and fought between U.S.-supported troops and guerrilla soldiers, many of whom were indigenous Mayan Indians such as the protagonist and her family. Fifteen-year-old Gabriela Flores is the second oldest (and oldest girl) of seven children. She, her siblings, and her mother (Mami) and father (Papi) live on a canton in Guatemala where they grow coffee beans. Their family are Indios, indigenous Mayan people who speak primarily Quiche, and only some of whom know Spanish. Gabriela is the only one to attend school, as her family is of modest means. Her older brother, Jorge, silently resents her for this opportunity granted to Gabriela on account of her unique cleverness. Gabriela loves to climb trees and is called “Tree Girl” in her native (Quiche) tongue. She is also bullied occasionally and called “Goat Face.” One day, while weaving outside, two drunken boys approach her and call her beautiful. Gabriela notices their drunkenness and suspects sinister intentions. She runs to climb a tree, and when the boys follow her, they become trapped and chided by the neighborhood.

As Gabriela’s family prepares for the celebration of her Quinciñera, the priest’s blessing is interrupted by English soldiers who kidnap her older brother Jorge when he stands up for his sister. The village is distraught after Jorge’s disappearance, but other English soldiers insist that it must have been caused by guerrilla warriors. Gabriela knows that guerilla’s don’t wear uniforms. The English soldiers return to Gabriela’s canton and insist that the residents furnish titles to their land—a concept entirely foreign to Gabriela’s family. The townspeople gather machetes and prepare to defend themselves and their right to the land, but when the English soldiers return, they declare that they will in fact allow the Mayans to remain on their land in exchange for alerting them to any guerrilla soldiers they find. This arrangements results in a state of distrust among the townspeople, who might invent fabricated stories of an individual’s involvement owing to personal vendettas.

Soon after the arrival of the Englishmen, Gabriela’s mother, Mami, falls ill and dies. Next, Gabriela’s schoolteacher Manuel Quispe (also an Indio) takes his classroom of students to the river, where they are bombarded by a group of soldiers who beat Manuel to death. In the heinous activity that follows, Gabriela’s classmates are shot down one by one as they try to escape. Gabriela is the only student to survive, outrunning the soldiers’ gunshots.



With her mother dead and no school to attend, Gabriela begins going to market to sell her father’s coffee and buy goods for her family. One day, when she comes home from market, she hears gunshots and finds her father and all but two of her siblings dead. She finds her two remaining siblings, Alicia and Antonio, cowering beneath leaves in a ditch. As they try to escape the carnage together, Antonio is shot by helicopters circling above. Alicia and Gabriela have no choice but to continue north to the Mexican border. They encounter a pregnant woman who asks for their help in delivering the baby. Gabriela tries to help the baby, but the mother dies in childbirth. Alicia, Gabriela, and the baby arrive at a pueblo with a local market. Gabriela enters alone to procure milk for the baby and food for her sister, but soldiers soon surround the town and Gabriela is forced to sleep in a tree into which she runs for safety. When the soldiers leave and Gabriela disembarks, she cannot find Alicia and the baby.

Gabriela continues walking until she finds a refugee camp. She is turned away from the first one for lack of space, and so continues until she arrives at the large refugee camp at San Miguel. Here, thousands of refugees compete for tarps to be used as shelter. Gabriela finally retrieves one, but shame forces her to give her tarp to two older women, Carmen and Rosa, with whom Gabriela makes friends. Rosa soon dies, probably from hunger.

When a new batch of refugees arrives to the camp on foot, Gabriela sees Alicia. She learns their story from a woman named Maria, who brought Alicia and the baby to safety when she saw them in her fields. Gabriela decides to name the baby “Milagro,” Spanish for “miracle.” Alicia refuses to speak.



At the refugee camp, Gabriela befriends a young man named Mario, who was a teacher in America. She inspires him to start a school for the children in the camp. Mario teaches the older children, and Gabriela the younger. One day, Mario tells Gabriela he wants to leave the refugee camp. Gabriela is devastated, and resolves to leave, too. She gathers tortillas and brings Alicia with her.

On their way out of the camp in the direction of the highway, Gabriela sees one of her students, who shows her how he can spell his own name. As they walk, Gabriela is frustrated by Alicia’s continued refusal to speak. Alicia stops near a tree and expresses interest in climbing it. Gabriela realizes that she will teach her sister to be a Tree Girl too. Tree Girls, she explains to Alicia, do not run from their fears. Gabriela assures Alicia that they will return to the refugee camp and their new family, Milagro, Carmen, and Mario.