Guided: Reading Questions

No drip. No rhythm.

That night, Elias searched online: Why do maple trees stop producing sap? Climate change. Unseasonable heat. Shifting freeze-thaw cycles. He read that some farmers were moving operations north, chasing the cold. guided reading questions

“We could leave,” Elias said at breakfast. No drip

The sugar shack had stood at the edge of the forest for four generations. Every March, Elias’s family tapped the maples, boiled the sap, and filled amber bottles with sweetness. But this year, the buckets hung empty. Climate change

“Too warm,” Elias’s father said, wiping his forehead in mid-March. “The sap isn’t running.”

Elias walked the line of trees alone. He passed the old silver maple, then the twin reds, until he reached the last tree—a giant sugar maple his great-grandmother had planted. Its trunk was wider than his outstretched arms. He pressed his palm to the bark.

His father stared into his coffee. “Your great-grandmother’s tree can’t move.”