The Great Treehouse War

The action of Part 2 takes place entirely in Winnie’s treehouse where Winnie takes her first steps toward Self-Advocacy and Standing Up for One’s Needs, defying her parents and refusing to leave her treehouse, driving her character growth. Although having her friends join her is fun at first, the stress of living in the treehouse causes a rupture that parallels Winnie’s situation with her parents, developing Winnie’s internal conflicts and prompting her toward action that will position her for the final stages of development in Part 3. 

Graff shifts tone slightly in Part 2. Although humor is still present (and the heightened details of the situation continue, as kids face off against adults in their treehouse siege), the sticky note side commentary lessens. This choice facilitates the rising tension and narrative stakes, and prepares the reader to experience Winnie’s emotions on a deeper, more serious level as the plot approaches its climax. 

Part 2 develops the Importance of Friendship and Other Bonds of Support via the positive impact the Treehouse Ten’s support has on Winnie—which she communicates via Buttons (once again used as a surrogate emotional processor for Winnie): “Everyone paid lots of attention to Buttons, giving him more snuggles and smooches than he’d had in a long time. And when he wanted to curl up and be alone, they let him do that, too” (128). The Treehouse Ten’s treatment of Buttons provides an analogy for their treatment of Winnie: She receives the support, companionship and respect for her personal time that has been lacking in her relationship with her parents, highlighting their dysfunction by comparison.

Winnie also receives support from Uncle Huck, who makes his first direct appearance in Chapter 9. Although Winnie’s reflections on Uncle Huck in Part 1 delivered indirect characterization, Graff’s direct characterization of him in Chapter 9 contrasts Uncle Huck with Winnie’s parents, emphasizing the supportive role he plays in her life. The narrator describes him as “hands down Winnie’s favorite relative. He’d been there for every one of her birthday parties, he volunteered for school field trips, and, of course, he’d built the treehouse” (149). Uncle Huck represents an alternative source of adult guidance and support independent of Winnie’s parents. 

Winnie’s first major confrontation with her parents in Chapter 7 underscores the novel’s theme of Self-Advocacy and Standing Up for One’s Needs, providing the first instance in which the reader sees Winnie explicitly name her own emotions and ascribe them to herself (rather than describing them as Buttons’s reactions). The narrator asserts: “And [Winnie’s parents’ obsession with evenness], that made Winnie mad,” indicating that Winnie is gradually learning how to stand up for herself (116). This moment prompts a key realization for Winnie: Although her parents claim their erratic behavior is for Winnie’s benefit, they have only been thinking of themselves and their own competition. Winnie realizes “this mess had all started […] when her parents had begun insisting that everything be exactly even between them, all the time” (116). Directly defying her parents is a big step for Winnie and pushes her closer to being able to advocate for herself and communicate her needs. 

Part 2 explores the theme of Navigating Parental and Complex Family Dynamics via the conflicts the other members of the Treehouse Ten have with their families. Winnie’s friends join her in the treehouse to protest grievances against their own parents; they’re drawn to her stand-off because they too feel underheard in their own families, suggesting that complex family dynamics are not restricted to high-conflict divorce situations. Even in homes with no conflict and well-meaning parents, disagreements inevitably occur. Graff uses the Treehouse Ten’s demands sheet at the end of Chapter 8 to reflect realistic concerns children have and reflect the sense of injustice they feel amid times of upheaval and change. Winnie’s request stands out among the rest as relatively simple and minor—she has asked only that her parents come and talk to her, both at once. Lyle even puts a side note making sure that’s all she wants (143). Although the text treats all the children’s concerns as valid, the difference between their situations and Winnie’s is nevertheless apparent. Graff later returns to the Treehouse Ten’s demands to support the motif of wants versus needs, suggesting the ability to communicate them is an essential part of navigating complex family dynamics.

The different reactions Winnie receives from the public about her treehouse stand-off develops her perspective on herself and her position in her family dynamic. While the Treehouse Ten receive support from other kids, “adults [seem] to agree that kids [are] kids and that they [have] to listen to their parents’s rules, no matter what those rules [are]” (150). This sentiment suggests the inability of the parents in the story to consider their children’s perspectives, defining a common root of the conflicts Winnie and her friends face: they have needs that aren’t being met, positioning the narrative to later examine the role that communication and compromise play in navigating complex family dynamics. The way that Winnie responds to the divided reactions to their stand-off points to the resolution at the climax of the novel. Winnie thinks of herself “neither as rabble-rouser nor as a hero […] just a girl in a treehouse” (152); she identifies herself somewhere in the middle, alluding to the tension she experiences caught between her parents, and the resolution she finds at the end of the novel by achieving compromise between the two disparate sides. 

The divisive argument between Squizzy and Lyle in Chapter 11 mirrors Winnie’s situation with her parents, prompting an emotional reflection that establishes important revelations, prompting the narrative’s resolution. Caught in the middle between her friends’ conflict, she feels her stomach churning “like a washing machine gone off balance” (194). Graff uses this situation to parallel the situation Winnie is in with her parents. Winnie believes she “couldn’t have told her friends what she thought if she’d wanted to—there was no way for them to hear her,” evoking a comparison with how unheard she feels in her relationship with her parents (194). This parallel pushes Winnie to confront these emotions in within the emotionally safe relationships she has with her friends, preparing her to eventually confront them in the context of her family dynamic.

The Treehouse Ten’s state of affairs by the end of Part 2 creates a more serious tone and directs Winnie’s conflicts inward with more pressing stakes. The development of a parallel conflict among her friends signals that Winnie cannot escape the problems she’s facing with her parents and must find a way to resolve them. The final events of Chapter 12 likewise suggest higher stakes. The loss of the local history report, which was Winnie’s final chance at passing the fifth grade, represents the sense of despair Winnie is feeling at this moment amidst the confusion of her friends’ conflict, positioning her to find resolution to her challenges in Part 3.