Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson is about a girl named Melinda who goes through traumatic events throughout her freshman year of high school. The novel also examines her relationships and attempts to communicate with other characters, as well as how she finds the courage to speak up for herself. Trees and seeds play a major symbolic role in the novel because they represent Melinda’s growth throughout the story. Throughout the novel, trees and seeds are mentioned numerous times. Trees were first mentioned when Mr. Freeman the Art teacher made everyone in his class pick a random piece of paper out of a globe, on the paper it had the word of a random object that had to be made into art and Melinda got the word tree “I plunge my hand into the bottom