The View From The Cherry Tree (1994) - Plot & Excerpts
For better or worse, I found myself thinking of The View from the Cherry Tree as sort of what-if-Ralphie-of-A-Christmas-Story-witnessed-a-murder? story. (The novel substantially predates the film, of course, but post-dates the Jean Shepherd novel from which the film drew, so maybe the association isn't entirely spurious. (Then again, it could as easily be what-if-Dennis-the-Menace-witnessed-a-murder?) The about-the--author notes indicate that this is Roberts' first novel for younger readers, and I was reminded of Lawrence Block commenting that The Burglar in the Closet became a comic mystery only because Block couldn't make it work as straight noir, and I wonder if The View from the Cherry Tree had a similar genesis: it leans awfully hard on the "nobody believes me" trope, but there's some implied, if off-screen, seediness that seemed jarring in a middle-grade novel.I thought this might be a book for which I've been searching for a long time. It's not the book I remember, and I'm sure I didn't read it as a kid. So either there were two kids books published in the mid-late 70's that featured a cat named "S.O.B." and mentioned spiders, or I was so shocked by the cat's name that I returned the book to the library unread. Ironically, the cat was far and away my favorite thing about the book, he's swaggery, cantankerous and generally credible.The book is clearly the product of a more innocent time, but Rob's inability to convince an adult to listen to him wasn't the only thing that strained my credibility much more than the grumpy ol' cat. A couple of my quibbles bear directly on the mystery, such as it is, and I'll avoid spoilers. But one of the ways we know Rob is a l'il hellion is because he's inordinately fond of his jar of live spiders. There are holes in the lid, sure ... but given that over the course of a few days, Rob does not spend time shoving bugs or other spider food in the jar, I'd expect him to wind up with a just one (somewhat larger) spider in pretty short order.
This book is about a child who witnesses a murder. After everyone else believes the murder was just an accident, Rob tries to convince police and parents that he isn't making up what he saw, and before long he's worried he'll become the killer's next victim.I rated this book as low as I did for a couple reasons, and one is simply subjective: Mysteries aren't my thing unless I don't feel like the author is deliberately leading me around, and this one did feel contrived at times to avoid the revelations coming too soon. I also found the characters a bit stiff; everyone disbelieving Rob seemed ridiculous to me when the only reason they had any investment in the murder's being an accident was that they hadn't liked the victim. Rob's protests and evidence were so consistently written off as silly or as bids for attention that I had trouble believing everyone was so fixated on invalidating him. And personally, I found the graphic details of the murder being described several times to be fundamentally disturbing, though I'm sure some kids who read more gory mysteries and horror wouldn't have had a problem with this.
What do You think about The View From The Cherry Tree (1994)?
I read this book when I was ten or eleven, and I loved it. I have always loved mysteries, and this was one of the few children's mysteries that I have ever read that are murder mysteries. It's scary. Rob sees the murder of his neighbor, but no one believes that it was anything but an accident. His family is too busy getting ready for his sister's wedding to pay any attention to what they think is one of his wild stories. I didn't figure out the ending when I read it in fifth grade, and by that point I was pretty good at picking out the bad guys. I reread it last weekend, and it holds up. It could happen today. Very good read.
—Melanie
I liked this book. In its own way, its kinda like a mystery book that had a little suspense at the end. The beginning was ok. After the lady got murdered it was better.I like the end where someone was trying to murder the boy because he saw someone push the old lady out the window adn everybody thought that she had just fell out. When he tried to tell his parents everybody would ignor him becasue his sister was about to get married so he decided to take it into his own hands. Thats when things got more interesting because he snuck into the house but someone followed him in and tried to finish him off. I was surprised who it was in the end. You wouldnt guess and I like it when its like that.
—Madalynn
The cat’s name is S.O.B., initials that “meant just what you’d think they meant”—introducing the kind of characters in this family but also a little distracting when trying to read about the cat. Rob demonstrates supreme reasoning and problem-solving skills given the circumstances. He is a smart kid that stays calm and thinks things through under stress. I am not okay, however, with the idea of a kid being a witness to a murder; a friend of mine was a witness to a murder as a teenager, and it has scarred him more than people realize. Without getting into the psychology of it, for a child that enjoys mysteries and murders (falling out of a first-floor window is a mild case), this is a great book, though there were a lot of characters introduced all at once, which tends to confuse me for awhile.
—Cami
