The Birthday Tree

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Description
Lyrical prose by Newbery Medalist Fleischman ("Joyful Noises: Poems for Two Voices") and magical illustrations by Root tell the story of a boy's powerful connection to his family despite distance and adds new meaning to the old custom of planting a birthday tree. Full color.

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Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.

Publisher’s Weekly (02/04/2008)
New art gives readers an opportunity to revisit Newbery Medalist Fleischman's (Joyful Noise) debut book, originally published in 1979 with illustrations by Marcia Sewall. The setting is a rustic past, for which Root (The Cat Who Liked Potato Soup) evokes soft hills and wide skies with calm authenticity. A sailor and a wife have lost three sons to the sea; they move far inland, build a new house and, when a new son, Jack, is born, they plant an apple tree. The tree and Jack seem eerily linked: when Jack is ill, its leaves tremble; when Jack thrives, it does, too. Years later, when Jack leaves home in the night, the health of his tree and the type of bird that nests in it inform his parents that he, too, has gone to sea. Root's vignettes of the tree, the fields beyond it and the rough-hewn furniture that waits along with the sailor and his wife for Jack's return offer comfort-until lightning strikes the tree. The quiet hopes of the parents, the russets and golds of the landscape, the vulnerability of Root's figures and Fleischman's careful writing are the antithesis of the tall tale-yet they share its mythic dimension nonetheless. Ages 4-8. (Mar.)

School Library Journal (02/01/2008)
Gr 2-4-This reissue of Fleischman's first book (1979) has all new watercolor illustrations. A sailor and his wife start life anew, making a three days' journey inland from the sea that has claimed their three sons. When another son, Jack, is born, the sailor plants a tree, and they grow together, the tree mimicking in its branches the ups and downs in young Jack's life. Despite his parents' precautions, the lure of the sea finally proves too strong, and they awake one morning to find the boy gone. The tree reveals how their son is faring: a gull at its top signals that he has reached the sea; abundant buds, leaves, and apples that he is well and happy; a lightning strike and diseased branches that he has been shipwrecked and may have died. Just when his parents are about to give up hope, the tree bursts into life, and weeks later they find Jack asleep in his bed. Spreads provide expansive views of the land and sky while the young boy's activities and the changing seasons are depicted in oval-shaped vignettes. Looking at one scene from below, viewers see a swirling black sky lit by a jagged streak of lightning that strikes the lone tree atop its hill. As Jack's situation worsens, the sky in subsequent illustrations becomes increasingly dark and menacing but brightens once again as the family is reunited. As is often the case with Fleischman's work, this story presents questions for readers to ponder, among them why Jack would disappear and turn up again without a word.-Marianne Saccardi, formerly at Norwalk Community College, CT

ISBN: 9780763626044 | EAN: 9780763626044
Publisher: Candlewick Press (MA)  | Publication Date: March, 2008

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