Sycamore Trees

It's no secret that Juli loves her first sycamore tree. It stands big and tall in her Mayfield neighborhood, and to Juli there's no better place to be than up in its branches.

And because Juli loves the tree so much, we hear about it a lot in the book. These are the sycamore tree highlights that stand out to us:

• When Juli rescues Bryce's kite from the tree, we get to read about the first time she sees the spectacular view from the top and it's totally fantastic.
• When men come with chainsaws to take out the tree, we watch as Juli refuses to come down—and get to see her guts in action.
• When Mr. Baker gives Juli the painting of Juli in the tree we see how much they both love and respect each other.
• When Juli refuses to come down from her tree she gets written up in the newspaper. This is pretty cool in its own right, but a certain someone (okay, Bryce) keeps the picture of Juli in the tree inside his folder, which is pretty sweet and lets us in on his feeling for her.
• And, of course, then there's that last little sycamore tree that Bryce plants in Juli's front yard.

Gee willickers that's a lot of sycamore tree action in this book! Are there other moments with sycamore trees that stand out to you?

Because we hear so much about Juli's sycamore, it makes sense that the tree represents a whole lot in Flipped.

The Happiest and Loneliest Place on Earth

When Juli is up in her tree, she feels all sorts of emotions. Happy and sad, connected and lonely—you name it, and Juli has felt it in her tree.

On the one hand Juli is pretty psyched about how great she feels when she's up in the tree. Just take a look at how she describes being perched high up in the sycamore's branches:

How could I be so full of peace and full of wonder? How could this simple tree make me feel so complex? So alive. (4.46)

Juli doesn't just feel awesome in the tree—she feels the best she's ever felt. Plus, we're thinking that feeling "alive" is much better than the alternative.

So Juli feels amazing up in the tree. But at the same time, the tree is also Juli's only close pal. Sadly for our girl Juli, she doesn't have a best bud, so the sycamore becomes her new BFF. And when she's up in the tree, she feels "a somewhat lonely joy as [she] look[s] out over the world" (4.51). Do you notice how Juli says she experiences both loneliness and joy in the tree? Now those are some conflicting feelings.

Okay, so being up in the tree is a seriously emotional experience. What other emotional experiences does the sycamore represent for Juli?

The Little Sapling That Could

The Mayfield sycamore is a big huge tree nowadays… until it gets chopped down. It had been growing for a super long time to get to its gigantic height.

But the tree wasn't always so big and strong; in fact, it's had some rough battles to fight. Check out what Juli has to say about the tree's strength:

Its trunk bent up and around in almost a complete spiral, and it was so much fun to ride down. My mom told me she thought the tree must have been damaged as a sapling but survived, and now, maybe a hundred years later, it was still there, the biggest tree she'd ever seen. "A testimony to endurance" is what she called it. (4.18)

Wow—this sycamore is a pretty cool symbol of endurance, according to Mrs. Baker. But here's the kicker: the tree gets chopped down. So does that mean it's still a symbol of endurance and making it through the rough patches? Or is it a symbol of failure? Maybe it represents both? That's what we think, anyway, especially since we see Juli fall down and get back up so many times in this book.

And don't forget that even though this big old sycamore gets hacked, we also get a new sycamore in the end.

Oh the Endless Possibilities

Since we have so many references to sycamore trees in this book, they could represent loads of stuff. So far we've got the tree symbolizing Juli's complex emotions, and the ability to endure… or the possibility of failure.

We've got one last meaning we'd like to throw your way. What do trees have? Roots. And though it takes most of the book, we'd wager that by the end of Flipped Juli and Bryce have finally started to put down some real roots together, romantic or otherwise.