The Birthing Tree
A Novel
-
-
4.4 • 20 Ratings
-
-
- $14.99
Publisher Description
INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER
NATIONAL BESTSELLING AUTHOR
Carnegie-Winning Author • Winner of the Barnes & Noble Discover Prize • A New Yorker Best Book of the Year
From the bestselling author of The Berry Pickers, an unforgettable novel about a woman who must confront her family’s buried truths and memories of passionate young love when her grandmother’s death leaves her as the only guide to her community’s future
Born under the shadow of a birthing tree sacred to generations of Mi’kmaq women, Aliet Paul grows up outside a small Nova Scotia town with her fierce, loving grandmother Kiju. Her mother died bringing Aliet into the world under that very tree; her father remains a mystery no one will name. Aliet’s childhood is shaped by seasonal apple pickers, the medicinal wisdom of the old ways, and the quiet, steadfast presence of John, a boy who becomes her anchor.
But the world beyond their community is changing. Traditional midwifery is condemned, prejudice deepens, and when the wrong person witnesses a birth, the consequences are disastrous. As Aliet comes of age, she navigates love, loss, and a personal tragedy that veers her from the path her grandmother wanted for her. She becomes a nurse trained in modern medicine, yet she carries Kiju’s teachings close, tucked beside memories of the tree that once welcomed new life.
Years later, when the call comes that Kiju has died, Aliet returns home to a crumbling house, a community scattered, and a past she thought she’d outrun. As Aliet restores the house room by room, something inside her stirs awake: the threads of her lineage, the old ways of her grandmother, and the mystery of her own bloodline.
As Aliet digs to uncover who her family really is, each revelation pulls her deeper into a web of long-guarded silences, dangerous loyalties, and generational wounds that refuse to stay buried: Someone knew the truth about her mother’s final moments. Someone knew what happened in the orchard all those years ago. And someone wants the past to remain undisturbed.
Spanning decades of loss and reclamation, this sweeping yet intimate novel follows one woman’s journey to protect the land, the traditions, and the memory of the women who came before her—and to decide which parts of her inheritance she will carry into the future.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Heritage is blood, pain, and love in this moving historical novel about one Mi’kmaq woman’s bond with the traditions outsiders have tried to uproot. Aliet Paul is born beneath the birthing tree in 1955, but her teenage mother dies in the process, leaving Aliet to be raised by her grandmother Kiju, a respected healer and midwife. Aliet grows up surrounded by love and uncertainty as the wider community and the law increasingly reject Kiju’s traditional practices. Decades later, after becoming a nurse and building a life in the city, Aliet returns home following Kiju’s death. As she restores the house where she grew up, an encounter with a white midwife helps her reconcile the tender and painful memories of her past and imagine a different future for herself. This is a powerful story about grief, inheritance, and a woman reclaiming herself through the generations that came before her.
Customer Reviews
A poignant story
Aliet Paul is born under the birthing tree that her mother dies giving birth other at the of 15. It is her grandmother, her Kiki, who is the midwife and practicing healer of the community that has helped all the women near and far give birth to their children under the same beautiful tree that has been affectionately called “the birthing tree”.
The community and surrounding area is becoming more progressive and listening to the health care community by admitting themselves to the hospital to give birth there being told by practitioners and nurses it is far safer and more sanitary to be in a highly sanitized and stable environment with physicians who have been educated and licensed to care for pregnancy and births.
Kiju becomes disheartened when the number of women coming for her help under the tree are few and far between and more than not are turning her away when she goes to check them telling her they are going to use the hospital and not the tree. Kiju is devastated because she has been practicing healing and has always been the one these females and their mothers and grandmothers have always believed to be safe and wanted to continue the ancient tradition of the birthing tree and the traditional way of washing the baby’s with cedar and how their people have believed to be quiet and that no one speak until the mother speaks to her baby first so the child will recognize their mother. They traditionally bury the afterbirth and cord in their gardens so that their souls know where to put down roots and where they can find their way to their family when they cross the veil to the otherside.
When Kiju dies, Aliet is distraught. It has been many decades since she had taken the time to visit and check on the woman who raised her, tried so hard to instill their peoples knowledge and the healing recipes into her. She visits Kiju’s house and is hit with all the memories of their time spent together and the love and devotion Kiju enveloped Aliet with. Her guilt is profound and her grief is immense and daunting. She decides to quit her job as a nurse in the city where she’s been working since graduation and live back at Kiju’s.
She is busy fixing the falling apart house that was in disrepair when she arrived, the roof leaking and animals had made their way inside and the dust was inches thick. She was more ashamed at herself for leaving Kiju all alone at her advanced age knowing she would never ask for help and that the house had fallen into such poor condition.
As the months go by she spends it lovingly restoring the home she and Kiju inhabited and processing and reliving their times spent together and the nostalgic moments that are so dear to her. She will strongly revisit the time when the last woman had come to seek Kiju’s assistance to deliver her under the birthing tree and the mailman sees Kiju, Aliet and the laboring woman walking towards the woods to the birthing tree. As they are boiling the river water and the woman is getting ready to begin pushing the police and EMTs as well as the local pastor all show up and force the woman to an ambulance despite her cries to remain there and Kiju and Aliet are handcuffed and arrested. They are prohibited from ever delivering another baby under the tree being told by local authorities it is unsafe and illegal to put women and their baby in harms way and they’ll be prosecuted for murder if ever they do decide to go to the birthing tree and a baby or mother don’t make it. Kiju’s light and purpose was extinguished that very day and Aliet is determined to deliver her own child under that tree as it means so much to her and from all the miracles and authentic nature of giving life in the natural world being aware and awake not under anesthesia like the routine is for the hospitals. Their people believe in the experience in the quiet during the delivery so the baby only hears their mother as their first voice it has been an imperative practice between their people and their ancestors as well as the importance of returning the afterbirth and the cord into the earths soil so the child knows their roots and where they are from.
Aliet and her two closest friends help her deliver her little girl under the tree where she sees her mother and grandmother and the many many women who had come before her to give life under the tree. The emotional prose and the lyrical power of the beautiful poetic words that gave such power to the emotions and feelings that the reader experiences throughout is incredible.
I particularly loved that in between each chapter were verses and short poems or paragraphs that were meant to be to Aliet from the birthing tree expressing her feelings about her retiring to give her purpose again and how much it had meant for her to be witness and experience the births with all the women and baby’s that had been born under her and between her roots. It was truly precious. Each one I highlighted and became more invested and enthralled with the book.
Another incredible masterpiece by #AmandaPeters! #TheBirthingTree is one for all the nature lovers and those who have an appreciation for traditional practices and other aspects of ancestral culture and the inextricably linked world of females and especially that connection between a mother and her child.