The Book of Amazing Trees — Review

Thought for the Day:

“Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.”
~ Theodore Roosevelt ~

Gifts for My Writer Friends:

I haven’t posted a synopsis helper post for a while, but HERE on Writers in the Storm, Kris Maze has a really good one — How to Create a Powerful Synopsis to Sell Your Novel. Powerful. That’s what I need.

Writers often read (and heed) the advice to write what they know. HERE C. S. Lakin at Live Write Thrive has an interesting post about Why You Should Write What You Don’t Know.

We have to write a LOT of scenes to make up a novel, but do we ever get repetitive with those scenes? HERE K. M. Weiland has a good post with 6 Questions to Help You Avoid Repetitive Scenes.

At last this week I embarked on my journey back from the worst couple of months of health problems I have ever had. I began taking a strong steroid orally this week. Soon I will have infusions of another strong steroid for four weeks. I actually have a little more stamina already, but no earthshattering changes. I didn’t expect any, but one can always hope. I’m sure this will be a slow, steady progression, and before long I will be the old me again. Thanks for all your good healing thoughts. I am having a quiet Mother’s Day with my daughter’s family today, which is exactly what I want. I hope all of you who are mothers are enjoying the day with family as well.

I looked for a book I had already read that featured a great mother character, but I didn’t have anything in my stack, so I chose The Book of Amazing Trees by Nathalie Tordjman and wonderfully illustrated by Julien Norwood and Isabelle Simler. And this isn’t the kind of book I usually feature here, but I have a real love of trees, and I loved this book, so there you have it. Did you know that Sacramento is called the City of Trees? It is. Sacramento is kind of a well-kept secret, and this is part of the secret. If you ever have the chance to visit the downtown area, you will be astonished at how woodsy the area is. It’s one of the things I like best about the place. Anyway, I want to share this lovely book with you today. Here is the review I wrote for the San Francisco Book Review.

Youngsters see trees all around them every day, but it’s very likely they don’t know much about trees. This wonderful picture book is not for the youngest children, but for younger elementary school (grades two to four) children. The book is jam-packed with information that is well presented and accessible for that age.

There are such a wide variety of trees included that it is hard to believe so much information about them can be packed into a book of only 64 pages, but readers will learn what defines a tree, what the major groupings are, and how they differ, what products can be produced from trees, what creatures live in trees, how they grow, how they help to clean our air, and so much more. The spread on record-breaking trees will amaze readers and have them scrabbling for more information. Is there really a tree that produces fruit that can weigh 55 pounds or a tree that has a trunk 80 feet around? There are.

The writing is conversational and easy to read. The illustrations are stunningly beautiful and nearly photographic in their detail, but they have the richness that only illustration can have. This is a winner!

Please don’t forget to check for other Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday posts at Greg Pattridge’s blog HERE.