A man enters the Amazon rainforest with the intent of chopping down a Kapok Tree. But while he sleeps, the forest’s residents whisper in his ear about the secrets of the rainforest. And soon enough, he comes to realize how “all living things depend on one another.” Kids aged four through eight will love reading about the Amazon’s ecology and the fascinating creatures who live there.
Read our Librarian’s top climate choices for children here.
This bilingual adventure teaches young readers what they have in common with trees: every single one is unique, has roots, and reaches towards the sky. Not only does the book deliver an ecological message, but it also contains a Spanish lesson. The colorful illustrations will keep kids aged five through nine extremely engaged.
Read our Librarian’s top climate choices for children here.
The Arctic treeline is the frontline of climate change, where the trees have been creeping towards the pole for fifty years. These vast swathes of forests, which encircle the north of the globe in an almost unbroken green ring, comprise the world’s second largest biome.
Scientists are only just beginning to understand the astonishing significance of these northern forests for all life on Earth. Six tree species – Scots pine, birch, larch, spruce, poplar and rowan – form the central protagonists of Ben Rawlence’s story. In Scotland, northern Scandinavia, Siberia, Alaska, Canada and Greenland, he discovers what these trees and the people who live and work alongside them have to tell us about the past, present and future of our planet.
At the treeline, Rawlence witnesses the accelerating impact of climate change and the devastating legacies of colonialism and capitalism. But he also finds reasons for hope. Humans are creatures of the forest; we have always evolved with trees. The Treeline asks us where our co-evolution might take us next. Deeply researched and beautifully written, The Treeline is a blend of nature, travel and science writing, underpinned by an urgent environmental message.
Trees and woods offer great potential for rebuilding our wider relationship with nature, reinforcing local identity and sustaining wildlife.
‘I’d really like to ask some kindly philanthropist to buy a copy of this book for every household in the UK. Very important, beautifully produced, a bible of Common Ground’s research and ongoing progressive intent as regards wood, forestry, biodiversity and trees as community in this country.’ ~ Max Porter, guest contributor to March 2022’s Rebel Library Hot Reads
We need more trees and woods in our lives, to lock up carbon, to mitigate flooding, to help shade our towns and cities and bring shelter, wildlife and beauty to places.
Living with Trees is a cornucopia of practical information, good examples and new ideas that will inspire, guide and encourage people to reconnect with the trees and woods in their community, so we can all discover how to value, celebrate and protect our arboreal neighbours.
Read more of Max’s recommendations in March 2022’s Rebel Library Hot Reads
Purchase Living With Trees at Hive Books
‘This is not our world with trees in it. It’s a world of trees, where humans have just arrived.’ This is the story of a group of strangers, each summoned in different ways by the natural world, brought together to save it from catastrophe.
An artist inherits a hundred years of photographic portraits, all of the same doomed American chestnut. A hard-partying undergraduate electrocutes herself, dies, and is sent back into life by creatures of air and light. A hearing- and speech-impaired scientist discovers that trees are communicating with one another.
Moving through history and across landscapes, this tree-filled novel unfurls our potential to destroy or restore the natural world.
‘This novel, which won the Pulitzer Prize, begins with the mass death of trees: the North American chestnut blight, which killed up to 4 billion trees at the start of the 20th century. While this book is very much about people – weaving together the interconnected stories of nine human protagonists – trees are the real subjects (not the objects) of the narrative, and Powers takes the reader deep into their inner lives, following the mycelial threads that link the human to the arboreal. This book genuinely changed how I saw the world: for weeks after finishing it, I could hardly walk down a street without stopping to stare at a tree, awestruck and dumbfounded, astonished that I could ever have taken their extraordinary presence for granted.’ Nick Hunt, guest contributor to May 2022’s Rebel Library Recommends
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‘And so, with great care, he planted his hundred acorns.’ While hiking through the wild lavender in a wind-swept, desolate valley in Provence, a man comes across a solitary shepherd called Elzéard Bouffier. Staying with him, he watches Elzéard sorting and then planting hundreds of acorns as he walks through the wilderness.
Ten years later, after surviving the First World War, he visits the shepherd again. A young forest is slowly spreading over the valley – Elzéard has continued his work. Year after year the narrator returns to see the miracle being created: a verdant, green landscape that is testament to one man’s creative instinct.
‘I love the humanity of this story and how one man’s efforts can change the future for so many.’ Michael Morpurgo, Independent