By Ted Kooser
Illustrated by Jon Klassen
Candlewick, 2012
$16.99, ages 4-10, 32 pages
When a little house is boarded up and forgotten, trees sprout up around it and lift it into the sky, in this stirring picture book about the power of nature to lift us up.
As he did in his moving debut Bag in the Wind, author Ted Kooser addresses a conflict between man and nature, but in such a gentle way that it never feels as if any judgment is being made.
In Bag in the Wind, he follows the journey of a discarded bag that's gotten loose in the wind, while here, he observes a man determined to keep trees from sprouting in his lot so that he can have a perfect lawn.
Kooser, in an author's note, explains that the man is struggling against time; as he fights to keep nature from taking over his yard, what he's really fighting is change. His children are growing up and moving away, and there's nothing he can do to stop it.
But like paintings, books can be interpreted in many ways, and to me, House Held Up By Trees is also a triumphant story of nature reclaiming what was taken from it, then of nature forgiving those who've trespassed on it.
But like paintings, books can be interpreted in many ways, and to me, House Held Up By Trees is also a triumphant story of nature reclaiming what was taken from it, then of nature forgiving those who've trespassed on it.
