100 books like Treemendous

I choose my fifth recommendation, Dairy of a Worm for its creative parody of both diary writing and insect life.

The main character of a worm, describing his parents, home life, and school life from a ground-level perspective is hilarious and cute.

The illustrations by Harry Bliss masterfully show the world through the tiny perspective of insects. Giant girls playing jump rope are a terror. And Worm's best friend Spider, is wonderful as an off-shoot side-kick.

In my library I would often follow up the story with a discussion on how life can be viewed from many different perspectives. And I can think of no better spring-board for just such discussion, than Diary of a Worm.

Stellaluna is about a little fruit bat who becomes friends with three young birds Pip, Flitter and Flap under the most unlikely circumstances. It is a story about unconditional acceptance and love. Stellaluna becomes separated from her mother and is taken in by the family of birds. The four friends discover many things that are different about bats and birds. Those differences only strengthen their bond. “How can we be so different and feel so much alike”. This story was a favorite of my children growing up. Stellaluna teaches empathy, kindness and the beauty of embracing our differences, not to mention that the illustrations are gorgeous. It is a book that should be on every child's bookshelf.

As unappealing as they seem, scientists have learned that flies serve a vital role in the food chain as pollinators, dedicated decomposers, and as both predators and prey. But would you want one for a pet? Ted Arnold’s series of funny and compelling books about a boy, Buzz, and his pet fly, Fly Guy, might make you reconsider a fly’s reputation as only a pest. Hi! Fly Guy is a good introduction to these books.

Have you ever considered the trials and tribulations of a snake? Yes, a snake. Janelle Cannon helps lessen the stigma associated with a snake in her heartwarming story of Verdi, a young yellow python, who goes to great lengths to not turn green - which is the color he is destined to be when he grows up. Even if you do not enjoy snakes, you will forget your fears and enjoy the antics in Verdi.

I love how this beautiful picture book teaches us to value trees as precious life forms that watch over and outlive us. I am fascinated by how the simple life story of a particular oak tree, from acorn to majestic ancient landmark, tells us so much about the passage of time and the changes our planet has seen over the centuries regarding farming, industrialization, and environmental damage.

I’m simply blown away by the wonderful rhyming text and sensitive, detailed illustrations, which work together to present the young reader with a relatable timeline from the distant past stretching far ahead into a hopefully more positive future.

I read Kiernan’s book only recently and found it entrancing. It’s a novel that defies any easy description. In a way, it’s about a grieving writer who takes up residence in an isolated house to try to recover from the death of her partner and to try to start writing again. Nothing more happens except her occasional drives to the local village and walks to the nearby red tree. But the book bursts with richness–with complex storytelling and, we slowly realize, with an increasingly unreliable narrator. As the narrator finds, reads, and transcribes a manuscript of local folklore she found in the house, the novel increasingly blurs the boundaries between past and present, reality and delusion. At times, I found myself unsure of where I was or whose words I was reading. All the stories converge, though, on the red tree, which exerts some force over those that come within… show more.

Red, a monoecious oak tree, narrates this luminous and beautifully illustrated novel. Red is two hundred and sixteen rings old and happily provides shelter for seven opossums, four raccoons, five owls, six skunks, and a witty crow named Bongo. Together, Red and the animals concoct a plan to support Samar, a girl whose family has just moved into the neighborhood. Samar hasn’t made any friends yet, and she’s feeling sad and lonely. Wishtree is about inclusion and community, but at its heart, it’s a love song to the trees and creatures that call urban areas home. Have tissues ready: Samar’s comforting middle-of-the-night visits to Red and Bongo will have readers wiping away a tear or two. 

This book forever changed the way that I look at trees. It’s a work of fiction, but elements are inspired by the life and research of ecologist Peter Wohlleben and his amazing discoveries of how trees communicate and cooperate.

It is incredibly well crafted and beautifully woven with ecological research in a digestible way. I admire an author who can weave together so many distinct narratives and lives, including the lives of trees.

It did the rounds in my family. Everybody was reading it across the world at the same time, and we loved chatting about it and discussing how much our minds were blown. 

The title is a refrain that rings around the world, as the children in two families, in two settings, plant a tree.

As in my book, time is a driving element here, bringing to light the cumulative effects of planting trees. Those effects, from clean air and soil retention to the bounty of fruit and the blessings of shade, are beautifully realized in the final page that brings it all back to the young characters and by inference, to the reader.

I feel the same about this book as Barry Lopez—who wrote a most wonderful introduction—when he notes that throughout his reading of the text, he often had to take a break to walk outside; the writing was just so stimulating.

Appealing to me as a poet, this is a slim book—about 90 pages—really a meditative essay that I return to again and again. I am fascinated by the originality of the author’s thought process, his supple prose, and his discussion of the polarities that exist between cultivated nature and wildness.

One singular sentence in this book (“The wood waits…”) has such resonance for me that I chose it as an epigraph for a book of my own.