Review: Tree Beings

Tree Beings are people who love trees. Photosynthesis – sunlight, air and water, is food that keeps trees alive and helps them grow new wood. 

This book leads us through the life of trees and the people that love and protect them, past and present. Trees have a language of their own that connects them to all living creatures.

This knowledge is made available to us.

A tree’s life is mapped out from how they breathe, fight climate change, help make rain, care for soil through their roots, clean the air and provide homes for wildlife. Their secret strength is made of a tough coat of bark, phloem, cambium, xylem, and heartwood.

This is a life-changing look at the power of trees. Its structure is four Big Ideas, held up by inspiring stories of people who fought and suffered for years, in many different ways, to protect trees. This spectacular production – for that is what it is, celebrates these people of all ages that warred against the destruction of forests.

The rare Foreword by Jane Goodall that covers her experience with forests and trees and her relationship to them, leads the parade of personalities and tree warriors. Her club, Roots and Shoots, inspires young people to care for our living planet.

Known and unknowns are profiled. Julia Butterfly spent 738 days up a giant redwood to stop it being chain-sawed. Professor Wangari Maathai became known as Mother of the Trees due to her life-long passion to protect and plant trees. Richard St Barber Baker travelled around the world for 70 years extolling the power of trees. There are many more warriors and their causes for trees.

Stories and myths extend to John Seed in Australia, who was one of those that fought to save the Daintree rainforest in Queensland. 180 million years old, it is the oldest rainforest on our planet.

Stunning illustrations full of light fill the pages. The cover is cloth-like and end pages are mazes of tree tops and roots spread into the earth feeding and protecting countless colonies of living things. There are lists of creatures to find hidden in countless puzzles and mazes, and much more.

For those looking for something extraordinary full of facts, figures, challenges, information and education that will change their view on living things, here it is!

Title: Tree Beings
Author: Raymond Huber
Illustrator: Sandra Severgnini
Publisher: EK Books, $ 34.99
Publication Date: October 2020
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 9781925820539
For ages: 7 – 12
Type: Non Fiction