Created by Corrie Lyndes, AmeriCorps VISTA

National Arbor Day is April 29th and Vermont Arbor Day is May 6th, the day before Green Up Day! Arbor Day is all about celebrating trees and their benefits. In Vermont, we are lucky to have as many trees as we do, but there is always room to plant more!

Picture Books

Who Will Plant a Tree? By Jerry Pallotta

A squirrel buries an acorn. A dolphin pushes a coconut into an ocean current. A camel chewing a date spits out the seed. What do they all have in common? Each one, in its own way, has helped to plant a tree. In myriad ways and diverse environments, Mother Nature is given a hand in dispersing seeds that eventually grow into trees. From the apple seeds falling off the sticky fur of a black bear to the pine seed carried by an army of ants marching to their anthill, creatures great and creatures small participate in nature’s cyclical dance in the planting of a tree.

More options:

• Arbor Day by Kelly Bennett 
• The Tree Lady by H. Joseph Hopkins 
• We Planted a Tree by Diane Muldrow 
• The Great Kapok Tree: A Tale of the Amazon Rain Forest by Lynne Cherry 

 

Middle Grade

Can You Hear the Trees?: Discovering the Hidden Life of the Forest by Peter Wohlleben

Discover the secret life of trees with this nature and science book for kids: Can You Hear the Trees Talking? shares the mysteries and magic of the forest with young readers, revealing what trees feel, how they communicate, and the ways trees take care of their families. The author of The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben, tells kids about the forest internet, aphids who keep ants as pets, nature’s water filters, and more fascinating things that happen under the canopy.

More options:

• Wishtree by Katherine Applegate
• Can You Hear the Trees Talking? by Peter Wohlleben 
• Trees: A Rooted History by Piotr Socha and Wojciech Grajkowski 
• The Tree Lady by H. Joseph Hopkins

 

Young Adult

Keepers of the Trees: A Guide to Re-Greening North America by Ann Linnea

Engage in the life stories of fourteen people whose lives have been shaped by trees—featuring the true stories of a tree doctor, big tree hunter Will Blozan, Plant Amnesty’s pruner, and ninety-four-year-old logger Merve Wilkinson. Also interviewed is Vietnam veteran Bud Pearson, whose post-traumatic stress disorder found healing and acceptance as a wood carver in the wilds of Montana, as well as Andy Lipkis, founder of TreePeople, who has spent thirty-five years ripping up concrete in L.A. to plant over two million trees in an effort to stop flooding and reduce air pollution. Each tree keeper reveals the inspiration and organization behind their advocacy with detailed explanations and touching stories of how their lives have come to be shaped by the forests they are fighting to preserve.

More options:

• One Earth: People of Color Protecting Our Planet by Anuradha Rao 
• The Story of Seeds by Nancy F. Castaldo 
• Trees, Leaves, Flowers and Seeds by DK Smithsonian

Adult

Urban Forests: A Natural History of Trees and People in the American Cityscape by Jill Jonnes

As nature’s largest and longest-lived creations, trees play an extraordinarily important role in our cities; they are living landmarks that define space, cool the air, soothe our psyches, and connect us to nature and our past. Today, four-fifths of Americans live in or near urban areas, surrounded by millions of trees of hundreds of different species. Despite their ubiquity and familiarity, most of us take trees for granted and know little of their fascinating natural history or remarkable civic virtues.

Jill Jonnes’s Urban Forests tells the captivating stories of the founding mothers and fathers of urban forestry, in addition to those arboreal advocates presently using the latest technologies to illuminate the value of trees to public health and to our urban infrastructure. The book examines such questions as the character of American urban forests and the effect that tree-rich landscaping might have on commerce, crime, and human well-being. For amateur botanists, urbanists, environmentalists, and policymakers, Urban Forests will be a revelation of one of the greatest, most productive, and most beautiful of our natural resources.

More options:

• The Overstory by Richard Powers 
• Wildwood: A Journey Through Trees by Roger Deakin 
• American Canopy by Eric Rutkow 
• The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben