The Old Tree

The Old Tree was created by Ruth Brown, and it is a story of a pigeon delivering mail to the animals of a tree.

The story opens up with the pigeon talking with Mrs. Rabit who had her seventeenth child. Everybody has some gossip on the other inhabitants in the tree- like the grumpy old badger, the rabit kids, the parakeets, or Mr. woodpecker- to just name a few. As she meets with each character and hears the gossip from them, she always asks if they know what the white "X" means on the tree. They all don't know what it means until Captain Crow hears about the "X".

Now Captain Crow is the last individual to here about this "X", but it is he who sounds the Alarm. "DONG~ALONG, DONG~ALONG."

After looking through his telescope, Captain Crow discovered that every tree with the white "X" were being cut down by woodmen. This greatly concerned the animals, and the rest of the story is about the ragtag individual worked together to save this tree.

In my opinion, this book is a delightful read with your children from zero to seven. The illustrations are warm and delightful. The artistry is not forced but melts in with the story being told.

It is important to appreciate the effort that Ruth Brown took in this book, because some children books are hard to reread to your children. As parents, how many times do our children want us to reread a book? Don't we want to enjoy it on some level and not get bored. It is my opinion that books that can stimulate a child's interrest while giving the parent something knew to find in each read is a great children's book. Just the feel and touch of the book is a great experience.

Finally, this was my first experience reading this book: I opened the book with my twentieth month old boy and we just flip through the pages. We enjoyed the pictures without reading it. Watch out for the last page, beace a tree pops out of the book. Transitioning from looking at two dimensional pictures to a three dimensional paper tree gave my little boy a fright. He was not expecting it. After a hug and a kiss, I showed him the tree and we read the book. My boy and my daughter just love to hear this story and anticipates the tree at the end. We enjoy seeing grumpy old badger dancing with Mrs. Rabit and the other characters having a party.

I don't know if I conveyed the beauty and elegance of this book, but my children and I enjoy love reading this book and I hope your family will too.

Thank you.