The best children’s books about trees from a plant ecologist

I love how detailed this book is, bursting with species to learn about. Nature can be a beast. What happens when a hurricane hits and ocean animals have their home turned upside down? I was on the edge of my seat, wondering what would happen to the animals. I love that the book shows how mangroves are trees that form a refuge in a storm.

This book is illustrated with intricate details of mangrove plants and the animals they host, making me want to grab my mask and snorkel and catch the next flight to the Caribbean to see them. Full disclosure: I studied mangroves for over 10 years, so I am biased, but they are really awesome trees. 

I loved being transported through time and space on a journey to learn about redwoods, the tallest trees on Earth. This is one of those great books where the illustrations show what is being described in the text, but in a way that makes the reader feel immersed—Roman soldiers riding the subway?

I liked learning about how redwoods start their lives and how they survive in their environment, including when fires strike. I love how the book includes the dangerous work of scientists studying redwoods and amazing scientific facts about how redwoods create their own rain and host other plants and animals that live high up in the redwood canopy. 

We think the forest is made up of trees, but this book shows us how some trees are connected underground by mycorrhizal fungi. I love trees, but we have to give the little guys some credit too, and sometimes ‘the little guys,’ i.e., underground fungi, are not so little. Fungi to the rescue!

I like how this book shows that in the case of Douglas fir trees and some other species, nutrients can travel between trees and support new tree seedlings as they grow in the shadow of giant neighboring trees, waiting for their turn to soak up the sunlight. I think of this book as a children’s version of Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard. 

I love this book because it teaches plant science. How do the trees actually grow so high? 

There aren’t a lot of picture books that include how photosynthesis works or how water is transported within a tree’s trunk. This book explains the plant physiology behind tree growth. Trees are, after all, the tallest things on Earth, but I have found that few books explain how they get to be so tall. We sort of take it for granted that tall things were always tall, didn’t we?

This book compares some of the world’s tallest animals and landmarks to the tallest tree species in the world: the coast redwood, giant sequoia, and Sitka spruce. While this text repeats some of the same information as Redwoods by Jason Chin, this book has more explanation on the biology of plant growth. 

I love this book because it has everything I want to see in a book about trees: parts of a tree, beautiful illustrations of their root systems and canopies, pictures of animals that live in the trees, and descriptions of how trees defend themselves. It is brimming with science but is written in a friendly way that doesn’t make me feel like I’m sitting in a lecture. The book explains how trees sense the world around them and how animals like monkeys, squirrels and birds disperse tree seeds.

My favorite part is the section on tree habitats, which includes tropical rain forest, temperate rain forest, swamp forest and snow forest, complete with how each habitat is structured and who lives there. I feel like I’m in an immersive museum exhibit when I read this book.