The Witness Trees

★ A gallery of stately trees around the world associated with times and events both historic and prehistoric.

Along with showing an adept hand at portraying botanical detail and a sense of individual character for each of these 21 trees, Đóm Đóm underscores their significance and longevity by posing historical figures and children of eras past and present in or around them–from the Buddha sitting with two young adherents, one light-skinned, one tan-skinned, beneath the “Bodhi Tree” where he found enlightenment to Abraham Lincoln next to a honey locust near the Gettysburg battlefield, visitors contemplating a Hiroshima “survivor tree,” and a lone Callery pear in New York that weathered the fall of the World Trade Center. Each tree is paired with an inconspicuous identifying caption and, more prominently, poetic reflections from Van Cleave: “Our roots run deep– / they grip history, / a restless forever.” Though the more speculative ages the author assigns to older “witnesses” may be exaggerated (80,000 years for the clonal aspen Pando takes no account of intervening glaciation, for instance), he does admit that Newton’s apple tree is actually a descendant of the original. To a world map showing each witness tree’s location he also attaches briefer notes on 11 more and, sadly, lists several renowned ones that have died or been destroyed in recent years. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Moving and, as a way of connecting today’s readers to significant moments of the past, effective. (afterword, timeline, bibliography)(Informational picture book. 7-10)

Ryan G. Van Cleave wrote his first poem at age five, and he’s been writing, reading, and loving poetry ever since. He earned a Ph.D. in American Literature with an emphasis in poetry and has taught at numerous colleges and universities. Currently, he runs the creative writing major at Ringling College of Art and Design. As The Picture Book Whisperer, he helps celebrities and high-profile clients write picture books and kidlit projects.

m m is an illustrator who uses his art to sow seeds of joy. He has illustrated multiple books and lives in Vietnam.