Peter Jackson (director/writer of Lord of the Rings/Hobbit fame) needs to get his hands on this series. It would make a kick-ass movie! I'm just saying...

Re-reading this trilogy on a whim and loving it just as much.

Still good after all these years

I first read this series when I was on middle school. It is fun to read the series again 30 years later and still enjoy the story.

I should have read this when I was 12. It was richly imagined but very predictable.

I read this book (and the rest of the trilogy) as a child and its mood and world-building was immersive. I never forgot, and spent years trying to find copies for my library. Still love it, though it was not deep on re-reading as I remembered.

11/16/19 on sale for $1.99 for Kindle.

Charming, though predictable.

Classes in joy, love, and peace, in school! Can you imagine!

I had almost forgotten I'd ever read these books, but I ran across a really old platformer game co-written by the author that apparently continues the story... it's existence and association with such an obscure childhood memory boggles my mind.

I had never heard of this book or this series or even this author until a good friend of mine mentioned doing her zillionth re-read of this beloved piece of her childhood. Since of course I needed to understand her book love, she loaned me this first volume and I settled in for a discovery.

I despaired, at first, because it took me a while to get into this. Snyder makes no apologies about her world-building, which is great in the sense that it's very solid and detailed world-building and frustrating in the sense that it took me a minute to figure out what kind of world was actually being built. I also found the characters rather flat at the beginning as they are assembled to create the main set-up necessary for the plot.

But then the plot kicks in with a vengeance, and from there I was very interested indeed. I'm glad I stuck with it, because this is a great story of the perils of hiding from fear and the unknown; it's not so much that the plot twists are surprising (although the reality of who the Kindar came from definitely was) because the main plot separation has been used several times since the publication of this. But the imagination and somewhat ethereal nature of this story draw you in almost without you realizing it. It ends up being a bit of a mash-up of "Demolition Man," "Fern Gully," and "Planet of the Apes," except I think it predates all of those (maybe not "Planet").

Thing, though: be sure to have the second book nearby for when you finish this. That cliffhanger is fierce.

This was my favorite middle grade author when I was ten or eleven and this was my favorite of her books.

I actually posted my vague memories of reading this series in the 90s to the awesome "what's the name of that book?!" group here on Goodreads and someone actually identified these books from my confused description. Amazing. And I'm so glad they did! It was fun to re-read these as an adult.

This is a sci-fi/fantasy type trilogy (well, it starts off fantasy-like, in a world with giant trees, but then you find out that everyone came to this giant-tree-planet on a spaceship long ago, etc). It follows the adventures of a pure-hearted young man named Raamo who is unique in his ability to continue using psychic powers (which all their people are gifted with) past the age of 5 or 6. He finds himself caught up by the strange priesthood that rules this super-peaceful, ultra-pacifist society. (The long-ago spaceship was fleeing because--you guessed it--weapons and war had devastated the Earth, and this might be a spoiler if it weren't a super-common trope.)

Of course it turns out things aren't so nicey-nice (duh), although not like you might think. It seems the author is going in the direction of "check out how orderly and peaceful society could be if we were all really nice!" and such, and she is, but as the books go on it's clear that she also feels that a super-peaceful society which comes about through the ignorance of the general populace can actually become harmful, eventually. The people in this "nice" society have basically trained themselves to never show strong emotion (so as to avoid anger, violence, etc, ideas which they don't even have words for) and to be fair and equal in all things (it's a communist society by way of denial, essentially). People are happy and peaceful. Nobody seems to be physically suffering. And yet, many of the people have a wasting illness (which sounds sort of like depression), their psychic powers are leaving them earlier and earlier, and so on.

In the course of the books the author examines the needs of humanity, and theorizes that violence, anger, and other negative emotions generally arise because people are in some way unsatisfied, and that just telling people to deny or suppress those feelings without acknowledging them won't sate the subconscious desires, nor get rid of them. People might be unhappy or behave irrationally, without the ability to understand themselves properly. They don't have words or concepts for their feelings, which can hamper introspection. When I think about it, it could be a good explanation to young people about mental illness, and what can cause or trigger it in some individuals.

There are some other people living on this world and they, of course, have a different culture, and we can all learn some valuable lessons from the differences! In the following 2 books, the clash/meeting of the two cultures becomes the main theme of the story. Because of their unique backstory (basically, both cultures descend from pacifist hippies), they don't just go to war like you might expect from reading other books with similar concepts, which is nice. Instead we explore the social discomfort, privileged behavior, and general disagreement that come when two very different groups try to live alongside one another. Some people just want personal benefit, while others care about the greater good; some resist change, and some embrace it.

I loved this dreamy tree planet. The charm of the setting of these books can't be overstated, in my opinion! I grew up in mountain woods, so perhaps it's just the type of place I am nostalgic for, but giant flora and light gravity and warm rain every day?? It's an idealist's fairy tale. <3 I do have to admit the 2nd and 3rd books are not as good (to me) as the first, but the world and its societies are unique and beautiful in concept.

As a child, this was one of my favorite books. I checked it out several times from the library and knew exactly where it was on the shelf. It's been many years but I still remember the story and think of it when I'm laying in filtered sunshine wondering what it would be like to only get sunshine "below the root".