The paper discusses selected aspects of The Wishing Tree, William Faulkner’s only published children’s story. It presents the circumstances of publication and the subsequent reception this literary work. Then it examines the key themes and the plot of The Wishing Tree in the light of the Bakhtinian theory of carnavalization as it applies to children’s literature. The Wishing Tree displays the quality of carnivalesque oddity; it is ridiculous, unserious, and facetious in comparison with Faulkner’s works for adults.
The sample of Polish version of this article is available here: https://tekstualia.pl/files/f6510150/skowera_m-faulkner_na_opak.pdf