The Singing Tree is a children's novel by Kate Seredy, the sequel to The Good Master. Also illustrated by Seredy, it was a Newbery Honor book in 1940. Set in rural Hungary four years after The Good Master, it continues the story of Kate and Jancsi, showing the effect of World War I on the people and land. Plot summary It is 1914, and two years have passed since the events of The Good Master. Jancsi Nagy, now called the "Young Master", is becoming a fine horseman and his father, Kate's Uncle Márton, has given him his own herd. Kate's father has moved from Budapest to the nearby village to teach school, and even wild Kate is growing up and taking on responsibilities on the farm, taking charge of the chickens and helping her Aunt with the sewing and ironing. As wonderful as things are, change is coming. Kate loves the idea of growing up until she learns it means she will have to stop riding her beloved horse. Spoiled Lily is coming to spend the summer with the Nagy family. And trouble is brewing in Hungary. For almost two hundred years it has had an alliance with Austria, and its men have served three years in the army under Austrian command. But the old loyalties are becoming strained, and resentments build between Austrian, Magyar and Slav. Coming home from a traditional Hungarian wedding the tired Nagys hear that Francis Ferdinand has been assassinated. Soon all the men between twenty-two and thirty are ordered to report for duty, and the little town has its first war casualty, young Rabbi Joseph Mandelbaum. As Uncle Marton explains "War is like a stampede, Jancsi. A small thing can start it and suddenly the very earth is shaking with fury and people turn into wild things, crushing everything beautiful and sweet, destroying homes, lives, blindly in their mad rush from nowhere to nowhere." Everything changes in Hungary during the war, and on the farm. Kate's father is a prisoner in Russia and Uncle Márton goes off to war, leaving Jancsi in charge. Every night the family gathers in the kitchen to read and reread the news from their loved ones. Only a few old men and children are left to help with the farm work, so Jansci requisitions six Russian prisoners of war to help. Fortunately, "Uncle" Moses Mandelbaum speaks Russian, and Jancsi leans