What is the setting of The Education of Little Tree by Asa Earl Carter?

The reader begins to feel as if he or she knows the mountain trails, the seasons, the cabin, the Spring Branch, the tiny field of corn, and the hidden whiskey still, where Little Tree spends several years under the care of his grandparents. The area in the eastern Tennessee mountains that Little Tree learns to love and calls home is fundamental to his view of the world. With Granpa by his side, his eyes are opened to the beauty of a sunrise, the behavior of the birds and animals, and the sounds of his surroundings.

Granpa teaches Little Tree to live with the land and take only what is necessary. Nature is the key backdrop to the story, and in many ways it is Mother Earth who is the central character and Little Tree's closest companion. Little Tree's grandmother tells him it is because he is born from nature: Granma said very few was picked to have the total love of the trees, the birds, the waters—the rain and the wind. She said as long as I lived I could always come home to them, where other children would find their parents gone and would feel lonesome; but I wouldn't ever be.

The other geographic setting which is presented as a dichotomy to the mountains is the town or civilization itself. When Little Tree and Granpa hike down to the crossroads store to sell their homemade whiskey and attend Church, they enter the other world. In this world, Little Tree is introduced to how other people live and speak.

And in most cases his impression of that world is largely a negative one filled with snooty aristocrats driving their automobiles, untrustworthy politicians, and those who seem to look down at the manner in which Little Tree and Granpa live their lives. As "foreigners" to the ways of the city, the notion is reinforced in Little Tree that he belongs in the mountains that are his true home.