In 1930 a five-year-old boy with no name is adopted by his Cherokee grandparents after the death of his mother. He goes to live in their cabin in the Tennessee Mountains. Granma names him Little Tree; and he is gently taught and nurtured in The Way of the Cherokee. In his formative years, he learns to respect nature and trust his instincts. He also discovers more about the unpredictable and worrisome ways of white men, especially politicians and businessmen. His distrust of whites becomes all the more extreme when he is forced to go to boarding school to be 'assimilated' through cruelty and rigor. Granpa and their friend, Willow Tree, the men he looks up to most in life, rescue him from the boarding school to continue his Cherokee upbringing.

The story begins at his mother's funeral. The relatives are arguing over who should look after Little...