The Chestry Oak by Kate Seredy

There are some books that show me the way I look at the world. Kate Seredy's books have a tendency to do that. She connects history with the present in a way that looks to the future, using trees, horses, and the earth to connect generations and places. She sees simple things as beautiful - from dandelion ducklings to a cluttered store. But perhaps, best of all, she sees people with all their trials and troubles and sorrows and burdens as people to love and respect. Yes, there are bad people who destroy what good folk try to build, but because the good are connected with the earth, the sun, and the seasons, they believe that new life will spring again, even if they don't get to see it.

"The Chestry Oak" does that in beautiful and poignant ways. The cynic in me finds it easy to write off the book as idealistic and unconnected with the harsh realities of the world. Things don't just turn out so well. The storyteller says it was episodic and parts were disconnected and slow. The part of me full of self-doubt and uncertainty wants someone else who knows books and history to read it and validate the way it stirred my longing and love.

Michael, Prince of Chestry, is 6 years old when he realizes his world is beginning to change. His Father and his Nana had given him roots in his history, but they are threatened by the seeping effects of WWII. Through the next 4 years, his world is mocked, destroyed, and forgotten. But he finds a new world where his young roots can be replanted and an acorn, horses, and good people connect the two worlds.

There are three sections although it isn't clearly divided, to the book. The first part is the time when he is Prince Michael. He learns what it means to be a Prince of Chestry, his connection to his people as well as his ancestors, and how to do what is right even when it is hard. The second part comes when he learns that the world he knew was carefully structured to keep him protected, and then it falls apart, and he is just Miki. But the third part takes him to a new place where he is loved and protected again, but here they call him Mike. In this new home he is able to remember and sort through his old life and remember that a Prince of Chestry will "Fear none but the Lord; harm none but evil."

In reflecting on the book, I have realized that I look at the world the   way Kate Seredy tells about it. That is why her books are so powerful and beautiful to me. Her characters are courageous, noble, honest, humble, and loving. Because they are so full of love, they can see the goodness in the people around them. They know what is good and work to bring out beauty and goodness wherever they are.

"And the righteous will inherit the Earth..." It might not be the individual, because good people sometimes sacrifice themselves for the sake of others and never get to see or feel the reward, but whenever anyone hears about that righteous act, they are better able to do whatever it takes to be good and loving themselves. So righteousness, like an acorn from a Chestry Oak, can grow deep roots of love, and fill the earth with beauty.