This is a re-read for me. When I read it back in the early 1990's I would have rated it a 5 stars, I loved it and fully believed it was an autobiography. After all the facts came out about who the author actually was and what he had done in his life, my feelings about the book changed. This time around I read a juvenile fantasy, an obvious fiction. I still can't reconcile the good heart of this book with the author.
Little Tree is orphaned as a young child, 4 years old I think, and is taken in by his Cherokee grand-parents. They live in the Appalachian mountains, run a whiskey still, and read Shakespeare by lamplight; and it is all ridiculously beautiful, meaningful and full of insight and humor. How did a man who formed his own KKK and participated in lynchings, a man who fought against civil rights movement; how did that man write this book? Change of heart? I don't think so, he pretended to everyone that it was autobiographical until the truth came to light. It still is a good book but no way could I take the pleasure in it that I had the first time I read it.