Growing Time: Zee Grows a Tree by Elizabeth Rusch

Growing up is hard to do!

On the same spring day that Zee emerges as a newborn, a new seedling Douglas fir emerges from its pot at Coopers' Christmas Tree Farm. Her parents name it "Zee's Tree."

 As her parents care for baby Zee day and night, they also take care to see that the baby tree gets the right nutrients, water, and temperature for it to thrive. As baby Zee gets big enough to get around on her own, the tiny fir, still inches short of a foot tall, is planted in the soil, and at first it grows below ground, putting down deep roots. Both grow, but Zee and her tree are a little shorter than most of the others of their age, but her father says...

"EVERYONE GROWS AT DIFFERENT RATES."

And Dad's right: during that summer Zee gets to big for her spring clothes and Zee's Tree grows a whole foot taller in a month--now taller that she is!

Zee gets all new clothes--school clothes--as she boards the Kindergarten bus, and her tree gets its first trimming, too. Soon Zee is a first grader and then it's time to lose some baby teeth. Her tree puts on new buds and begins to shoot up, too.

But late in spring, the rains stop and the tree's top branches grow brown in the drought. Zee waters her tree often, and following directions, spreads ice cubes around its roots to keep the soil cool.

"DON'T WORRY. I'LL TAKE CARE OF YOU!" SHE SAYS TO HER TREE.

In the fall she spreads mulch to keep the moisture in the ground around her tree, and come cold weather, she and Dad put up a windscreen to keep away the dry, ice-chilled winds of winter, and when her eighth birthday rolls around in the spring, Zee's Tree is sturdy and well again.

In fact, by late fall it is so tall and beautiful that Zee needs a ladder to put the star on top for its first year as an outdoor Christmas tree, in Elizabeth Rusch's newest, Zee Grows a Tree (Candlewick Press, 2021). With loving attention to care for a child and the cultivation of a young tree, this how-to story book, part fiction and part nonfiction, shows how a child transfers the love devoted to her nurture to the growth of her very own tree. In author Rusch's gentle text, the little fir tree grows and thrives along with its young arborist, shown in the soft but realistic artwork of Will Hillebrand, and bolstered by an index of tree-growing terms and a brief bibliography of books about the joy and skills of growing your own tree. Says School Library Journal, "... a brilliant combination of storytelling and factual information."

Bah, Humbug! The Halloween Tree by Susan Montanari

Christmas is coming, and the little evergreens on the tree lot are all a-twitter, dreaming of twinkling lights, tinsel, and bright stars on their tops and trying to hold their little trunks as straight as they can.

All but one of them, that is.

One little tree is clearly the Grinch of the bunch.

"I DON'T WANT TO BE A CHRISTMAS TREE.

I DON'T LIKE LIGHTS.

I DON'T LIKE DECORATIONS, AND I DON'T LIKE PEOPLE."

A curmudgeonly Christmas tree? How can that be? He's such a malcontent that he sheds his needles constantly and grows more crooked every day. It's no surprise that when the last late tree shoppers pick over the remaining trees on Christmas Eve, he's the last one left.

As time passes, the town moves closer and closer. The tree lot is sold, and soon the Scrooge-y tree finds himself in the middle of a new subdivision. The tree is not happy with his new neighbors.

"I DON'T LIKE PEOPLE!" he grumbled.

The tree has grown taller, but more twisted and gnarly. Still, the neighborhood children find its knotty trunk easy to climb and soon it becomes one of their favorite places to play.

"IT'S A PIRATE SHIP! called Sarah.

And so it is. Sometimes the tree is their fort, and sometimes it's a space ship or even a dreadful dragon!

And when the weather grows colder, the grumpy tree discovers that he's lonely alone, without the children playing on his limbs. And when their dad complains about the spooky-looking tree and threatens to cut it down, the kids have other ideas.

"I KNOW WHAT TO DO! said Sam

And soon the twisted tree is decorated with wispy spider webs, little Jack o' lantern lights, a part-time black cat, and little hanging spiders. The neighbors admire it, and the cranky tree gets a new name--

THE TRICK-OR-TREE!

In a humorous turn-the-tables takeoff on Hans Christian Andersen's classic The Little Fir Tree,  author Susan Montanari's and artist Teresa Martinez's latest The Halloween Tree (Sourcebooks/Jabberwocky, 2019), shows that, however unsightly, there's a time and place for every tree. Kids will love this tale of a creatively re-purposed tree, and may even have some Halloween fun decorating their own least lovely tree.

Growing Up Green: Maple by Lori Nichols

Maple loved her name.

When she was just a whisper, her parents planted a tiny tree in her honor, and even though Flavia, Millie Jane, Lena, Lily and Constance were good names... Maple was the perfect name.

So even though Maple is the only child in her family, she is not alone. Her maple tree grows up with her. Her parents put her cradle under the tiny leaves of her tree during her first summer, and as she gets bigger, her tree is always there.

When she learns to dance, her tree dances in the breeze with her. She brings dolls outside and makes a playhouse in the shade of her tree.

Sometimes when Maple was noisy (it was a lot), her parents sent her outside to play.

Her tree didn't mind.

One day Maple notices that her tree has lost most of its leaves. It looks cold, so she takes off her new red coat and wraps it around her tree to keep it warm.

Bur even though Maple loves her tree, sometimes she is lonely for a playmate. And again, her parents are way ahead of her. One day they plant a new tree, a willow, and before too long, Maple has a baby sister. She names her sister Willow and starts teaching her how to play, and to the baby's delight, the two trees dance for them both.

Lori Nichols' Maple (Nancy Paulsen Books, 2014) is an insightful look at growing up, a parallel story of a lucky girl who comes into the world with her very own tree to grow up with her. Nichols' soft full-bleed illustrations are simple and sweet, helping tie a child's growing up to the natural world around her. This is a fine choice for young families expecting a new baby, especially for those who can gift the child with his or her own tree, or a a memorable project for a Kindegarten class, who can come back every year for a snapshot with their tree. With starred reviews for Nichols' first picture book, School Library Journal adds "This is a fresh addition to the standard new sibling fare, and young naturalists will identify with Maple's adventurous and tender spirit."