The Tree in the Ancient Forest

September 1, 1995
PreS-Gr 1-Structured like ""This Is the House that Jack Built,"" this environmental rhyme aims to show the interdependence of living things in the ancient forests. The pace of the poem gets bogged down a bit when readers encounter verses such as ""These are the voles and mice that tunnel,/And eat the tiny, underground truffles/That grow on roots that draw food from the soil,/To nourish the three-hundred-year-old tree/That grows in the ancient forest."" The theme, as well, is a bit belabored-pine cones falling and startling a marten are part of the process. Acrylic paintings dominate the pages; they are mostly dark and somber and may seem slightly menacing. An introduction, in small dense print, outlines the meaning of interdependence, and a final section elaborates on the cast of characters. Not a vital purchase.-Eva Elisabeth Von Ancken, Trinity Pawling School, NY

July 1, 1995
Ages 5^-8. A 300-year-old fir tree is the main character in a forest drama depicting the cycle of interdependence between plants and animals. The truffles that grow on the roots of the fir tree are food for the mice, who, in turn, are food for the owls living in the hollow of the tree that was created by a woodpecker, and so on. Reed-Jones' cumulative verse technique, which very effectively illustrates the ecological concept, will make this book a lively story-time or lap-share read-aloud as well as a good choice for choral reading. Canyon's superb double-page illustrations can be appreciated both as fine works of art and as detailed studies of forest flora and fauna. To give children an even broader view of forest ecology, use this with Lynne Cherry's "Great Kapok Tree" (1990), a wonderful tale of the Amazon rain forest. ((Reviewed July 1995))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1995, American Library Association.)