Many people experience depression, and don’t know how to show it, but Melinda finds a way around that problem by showing it in her drawings of trees in art class. In the novel Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, Melinda Sordino is pushed into arguably the worst year of her entire existence. After an obscured anguish over the summer, Melinda enters ninth grade being quiet and somber. Struggling with school, family, and friends, melinda explains the tragic story of her experiences, and the reason why she has decided not to speak. Although Melinda does show some evident outer signs, such as cutting her wrist with a paperclip, much of Melinda's depression is shown through her artwork of trees. In the worst stage of her depression, Melinda was feeling