Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Leaves of Absence: The War-Torn (But Mostly Just Annoyed) Life of a Vicksburg Cottonwood

Leaves of Absence: The War-Torn (But Mostly Just Annoyed) Life of a Vicksburg Cottonwood

Bone, Lexi

Paperback

Historical Fiction

ISBN13: 9798186597605
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Jul 10 2026
Pages: 32
Weight: 0.28
Height: 0.08 Width: 8.50 Depth: 11.00
Language: English

Told from the wry, world-weary perspective of a ninety-year-old Eastern Cottonwood on the Vicksburg bluffs, this illustrated novella recasts the Siege of Vicksburg (1862-63) as witnessed by the wildlife who actually lived through it. The tree - dryly unimpressed by human architecture, steamboats, and ironclads - narrates the chaos alongside its animal tenants: a gossiping flying squirrel, a bickering mockingbird couple who mimic cannon fire for fun, a cynical raccoon matriarch, and a possum with poor impulse control. Real historical beats (a grounded steamboat, Farragut's ironclad fleet, the CSS Arkansas's suicidal run through the Union gauntlet, a human family sheltering in a cave dug into the tree's roots) play out as slapstick and quiet tragedy in equal measure, with the tree itself taking a cannonball to the trunk and losing a limb before the armies finally move on. It closes on a note of patient, ecological perspective - the tree outlasting the war, certain the humans will return.

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