The Old Tree: An Environmental Fable Book

One of my favourite books growing up was A Dark, Dark Tale by Ruth Brown. It is mostly pictures, which capture a lot, and there's so much scary atmosphere throughout until the very end, which is adorable. As much as I loved that book, I never thought to look up any other books by Brown. This one I came across at work. See, my division of the Ministry of Education has everything do to with kindergarten, and at our divisional meeting our ADM (Assistant Deputy Minister) read this book aloud to us (it's a wonderful division, I love it there - no one else in the government gets picture books read to them at meetings!!). I borrowed it from him on Friday, but I absolutely have to get my own copy because it's an absolute gem.

One day when Pigeon arrives with the day's mail, she sees a big white X painted on the tree. As she delivers the mail to the tree's inhabitants - to Mrs Rabbit and her brood, to grumpy badger and Mr Squirrel, to Professor Owl and Maggie Magpie and, at the very top of the tree, Captain Crow who keeps watch with his telescope - she asks each of them if they know what the big white X on their tree means. None of them know; they're all too busy complaining about the pair of parakeets who are so noisy. Except, that is, Captain Crow.

Captain Crow has been watching the forest and knows that the trees with white X's painted on them will be chopped down. And, oh no! They can hear chopping noises already! But it's only Mr Woodpecker, cutting a hole in the tree for a new addition to his home.

This gives Pigeon a great idea, one that will get them all working together to save their tree.

This has to be one of the most beautiful picture books I've seen since Shaun Tan's The Red Tree. The illustrations take up the full two pages and are simply stunning, painted with a wealth of detail. As a kid, I could spend hours gazing at an illustration in a picture book, finding all sorts of little things and letting the story live like a play or movie in my head, even when I couldn't read the words for myself. As an adult, I still love spotting all the little details, and also admiring the artistry of the paintings. At the end, the last spread is a glorious pop-up of the entire tree and its inhabitants.

The story itself has a great message, one of cooperation, community spirit and environmentalism. A diverse range of characters live in close proximity to each other, often irritated by one another, but must come together to save their home. It is a great message for children, whether they live in dense, multicultural cities like Toronto and Sydney, or in the country where you could easily ignore your neighbours and become isolated and uncaring. The environmentalism side is clear enough, but the Old Tree also captures the ecosystem, the way everything in nature has its own qualities which work together to create, well, the planet as we know it. There's no need to drum these kinds of messages in; children pick up on them regardless. They're not stupid.

There's delight in the prose as well, which doesn't talk down to kids but helps them become better readers by being just challenging enough:


"Good morning, Professor Owl. How are you today?"

"Dreadful," moaned the professor. "I've got an appalling headache because of the screeching of those frightful parakeets, not to mention that remodeling fanatic downstairs."


This is definitely the kind of picture book I'll want my kids to have, and I'll have to keep a look-out for more Ruth Brown.