Tree Beings
Raymond Huber (author), Sandra Severgnini (illustrator)
Exisle Publishing, $34.99
“Plant a tree, save the planet.”
This is the short, take-home message of Tree Beings.
But this fascinating book is much more than a primer on how planting trees and preventing deforestation might save us from the devastating effects of climate change.
Introduced by renowned primatologist and founder of the Roots & Shoots program, Dr Jane Goodall, it features stories of significant tree conservationists, scientists and protestors who’ve protected our forests and informed our understanding of trees (which I learned are the oldest living beings on earth and have their own methods of communication).
One featured activist is nine-year-old Felix Finkbeiner who found out about climate change and the courage of Kenyan tree planter Wangari Maathai (whose story also appears in Tree Beings) through his research for a homework assignment. Having discovered how trees soak up CO2 and cool the air, Felix convinced his classmates and then students at other schools to join him in his fight against global warming. By 2010, through Plant-for-the-Planet, he, and the organisation’s other young founders, had organised for one million trees to be planted. They are now working on their new target of one trillion trees, which is pretty impressive.
“A forest is really like a community of trees that care for one another,” writes Tree Beings’ author Raymond Huber in a section about how smart trees are and the different ways they communicate. I did not know, for example, that a tree’s leaves can produce scents to warn other trees of an impending pest attack. Or that when a tree is dying it will send its food to nearby trees through the “wood-wide web” – a mutually beneficial network of relationships between tree roots and fungi.
While the book is designed for 7- to 12-year-olds, Sandra Severgnini’s delightful illustrations and mazes are integral to its appeal, and help make it suitable for older readers. This is good given that humans have killed almost half of the world’s forests since we inhabited the earth and clearly more of us should be exposed to its key messages.
“Trees need our help” is the last of the four “big ideas” that shape the book, and it is here Huber’s call to action is delivered sprucely.
Plant a tree. Protest against cutting down old native forests. Recycle wood and paper products. These are the small actions we must take to make a big difference to the planet.
