A Tree's Tale [Hardcover]

Lark Carrier (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1996 | Age Level: 7 and up

The huge, 400-year-old oak tree sees many people come and go during the course of its life as a Mai-Mehtug or "path-tree" to the inland forest.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The long-lived tree as witness to history could almost be a subgenre in picture books, but Carrier (There Was a Hill...) gives this motif a twist?literally. As her story begins, Native Americans choose a sapling in a dense forest and train it to a bent position, so that it becomes a path-tree, or guidepost, along the forest trail. During the colonial period, the tree's distinctive horizontal trunk supports a child's rope-swing; later, it becomes a lookout perch for shipbuilders' children. Over the next 200 years, the tree survives the land's succession from forest to farmland, back to forest and then to contemporary residential development. Complementing misty, softly textured watercolors, Carrier's prose is quiet and finely crafted. For example, she likens the second-growth forest to "a bear's thick winter coat, all new and shiny." She stops just short of personifying the tree as she dramatizes its experiences. An endnote provides further information on path-trees, a few of which survive in the Great Lakes region. Ages 4-8.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Grade 2-4?Carrier's fictional account of one tree's life covers a broad sweep of history. Native Americans bend an oak sapling to shape it as a trail marker pointing west. Colonists arrive and clear the forest, but the bent oak is spared to serve first as a swinging tree and then as a lookout. Contemporary suburban sprawl almost claims it until an alert man recognizes its unique history as a pointer to the inland forests. The author's focus on these little-known trail markers adds a novel dimension to picture books such as Linda Vieira's The Ever-Living Tree (Walker, 1994) or Bruce Hiscock's The Big Tree (Atheneum, 1991). The pastel, impressionistic quality of the watercolor illustrations lends a romantic overtone to a story of repeated ecological destruction. Even the new housing project is bathed in a soft glow. Yet the pictures are adequate to help introduce a topic that could provide a new twist to units on early North America or about changing landscapes.?Kathy Piehl, Mankato State University, MN
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 7 and up
  
• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Dial; 1st edition (April 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803712022
• ISBN-13: 978-0803712027
• Product Dimensions: 20 x 20 x 20 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,791,291 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.