Chiara is an eighteen-year-old Italian woman who moves alone to South Africa in 1970, catapulted by love and circumstances into a foreign land five thousand miles away from home. In her brief initial stay in South Africa, she experiences a turmoil of emotional events, the inebriating happiness for having rejoined her boyfriend, now husband, the elation of true friendship, but also homesickness, hate, abuse, and finally mourning. All embedded in her own unforeseen yet hastened call for growth and maturity.

An old hermit monk journeys to the edge of a vast plain of long grass and resides under a great Bent Tree, where also rests a sleeping tiger. While there, he is visited by various characters who seek some solution to their life problems. The old man uses tales, debate and taoist philosophy to help them weave their way back into a happier tapestry of life. These tales mix humour with deep thought, which at first confounds, but always enlightens in the end. Far from the Road, the road more or less travelled, there is, under the Bent Tree, surrounded by long grass, an Old Man and a sleeping Tiger. That is to say that sometimes the man sleeps and sometimes the tiger sleeps. There are times too that both sleep, but because there is always peace, there are never times that both do not sleep. Strangely too, there is always one tiger for one man or one woman...never more , never less. What does this mean? We know the road is life, more or less travelled. We know the long grass is the vagueness of fates between living and wisdom. We "see" things in the distances of our destiny but how do we get there? Do we want to get there? The Bent Tree is easy. It is Death and it is Wisdom. For all knowledge comes with Death, the Great Portal...and then, that is the end of all Knowledge. Which is Wisdom also. The Death of all Knowledge. Under the Bent Tree, knowledge sleeps. We are left to explain a man and a tiger. The tiger sleeps and the man is awake. The man is Logic, Reason, Consciousness. The man sleeps and the tiger roams. Do not be alarmed, however. Though the tiger is indeed a man or woman's passions, without reason and logic, passion is only passion. It is Natural. It creates. It knows nothing of evil. Unless the man or woman awakens also. Then we have a soul to deal with.

Chiara is an eighteen-year-old Italian woman who moves alone to South Africa in 1970, catapulted by love and circumstances into a foreign land five thousand miles away from home. In her brief initial stay in South Africa, she experiences a turmoil of emotional events, the inebriating happiness for having rejoined her boyfriend, now husband, the elation of true friendship, but also homesickness, hate, abuse, and finally mourning. All embedded in her own unforeseen yet hastened call for growth and maturity.

"In this rhyming story, a little girl walking in the woods befriends a pine tree that is bent. When construction of a new strip mall means cutting down the forest, the little girl and others work together to protect the trees and create a park near the mall. Includes discussion questions for teachers, parents and children"--

The tree is very old; its branches are bent and twisted, no longer producing leaves. All the birds have left, and it is all alone. A little girl wants to replace the birds and console the tree, but she cannot have wings. The lonesome tree sways in the wind with nobody to give it comfort.