002: The Tree Folk - Chapter 14 and 15

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Read by Ruma Tenbrink with the permission of Clete Barrett Smith:

If We Were Giants is an uplifting, sometimes harrowing, tale by rock star and environmental activist Dave Matthews and Clete Barrett Smith. Inspired by the cooperative behavior of bivouac ants, Matthews conceived a story of small people who stood up against overwhelming forces by working together, and co-author Smith built an entire world and cast of characters around that beginning. Protagonist Kirra, 10 years old for the first part of the story, 14 later, is racked with guilt because her own careless eagerness led an army of scary invaders called the Takers to discover and wipe out her family and all who lived in a carefully-hidden town inside a dormant volcano. Adopted by a family of peaceable, self-sufficient tree dwellers, she doesn't talk about her past, but when she's 14, the Takers threaten her new family, too. Between the massacres, the hunting scenes, the scary-looking villains, their shiny weapons, and the hand-to-hand combat, there's a lot of violence, but no gratuitous gore. There are lots of positive messages about family, friendship, courage, collaboration, cooperation, clever thinking, and living in harmony with nature and one another. Also about finding your true path and following it even when obstacles crop up.

If We Were Giants  opens as 10-year-old Kirra and her storytelling father/mentor -- the only people allowed to leave their well-hidden town inside a dormant volcano -- are returning home from a tour of neighboring villages and storytelling festivals. They're worried, because word has started to spread about brutal invaders called the Takers who pillage everything in their path, strip the landscape and kill the inhabitants. All is well for a while when they get home, but then Kirra, eager to find her own stories to tell, goes outside the walls again -- and leads the Takers straight back to her home and loved ones. In shock and grief, she falls into a river and nearly drowns before a family of tree-dwellers takes her in. Years pass, and then comes word that the Takers are headed for her new home. She's determined to save her adopted family and their neighbors -- but how?

This whole story came about because Dave Matthews observed the behavior of ants in the wild, and was inspired to see how it might apply elsewhere. Have you ever seen something in nature that made you look at something in your own life in a different way?

Inspired by ants, Dave Matthews and Clete Barrett Smith spin an exciting, harrowing, uplifting story of banding together to use cooperation -- and clever technology -- against predatory invaders. "If We Were Giants," muses a little kid, we could win against these ruthless foes. Fourteen-year-old tree-dweller Kirra, whose home has already been destroyed, has to rise above her survivor's (and other) guilt to help the people who've taken her in -- and maybe help them become giants for real.

• Authors: Dave Matthews, Clete Barrett Smith, Illustrator: Antonio Javier Caparo,