Flying Lessons & Other Stories

Content Warning: The source material features depictions of parental death and racism. Additionally, this story uses an outdated term for Black people, which is replicated in this guide only in direct quotes of the source material.

The protagonist, an 11-year-old girl nicknamed Treetop, tells this story in a chronologically fragmented style, sharing memories of her best friend Celeste, who has moved away, and of her mother, who died of cancer when Treetop was eight.

The story begins in autumn in Petersborough, New Hampshire. The leaves are changing to red and gold, an image proudly displayed on postcards in the pharmacy on Main Street. Treetop recalls that the leaves are what brought her best friend Celeste to town: Celeste’s mom visited once and fell so in love with the leaves that she decided to move there. Celeste, who is Black, once shared with Treetop, who is white, that her mother was so busy looking at the different colored leaves that she did not notice there were no other Black people in town. Treetop remembers this as she sits in the coffee shop on Main Street, watching people from the city writing on postcards.