In the tradition of To Kill a Mockingbird, Mathew Tekulsky’s The Chestnut Tree is a coming-of-age novel about conscience and courage.

 

Set in a quiet Westchester County suburb on the Long Island Sound, The Chestnut Tree follows twelve-year-old Adam Jacobs and his classmate Sally Fletcher as they begin to see their town more clearly than they ever have before. After an unsettling incident exposes hidden tensions, the two children find an unlikely ally in Gladys McKinley, a blacklisted writer who offers them refuge beneath the branches of her chestnut tree.

 

Told through the eyes of a child, this poignant novel explores how small acts of bravery can unsettle a community’s certainties—and how the moral clarity of youth can challenge the compromises of the adult world.