The Dance of Words and Pictures in The Tree in Me

Trees and us. We’re bound together from breath to shelter and beyond, bound together in every way.

That’s the truth that resides in this poem in words and pictures from author-illustrator Corinna Luyken. The words are as delicate as the rustle of leaves but they’re also completely centered on the child reader:

The tree in me

is part apple,

part orange-pear-almond-plum

(part yummm),

Even the punctuation is placed with care, adding pause and breath, mediating the transition from shade to light, as if the words and their accessories were meant to float off the page as the text is read out loud.

This is a text that begs to be read out loud. The words reach into this magical setting, pulling in the elements—”wind,/ and rain,/ and dirt,/ and a sky too.” At the same time, the illustration forms a painted poem of its own, showing us children absorbed in play in, under, and around the tree. A brown-skinned child of indeterminate gender leads in the opening pages, while the crowding of children in other spreads reflects the crowding of roots and trees that dig into the earth and reach up to the sky. With that suggestion of community, we’re led to a final connection between reader and listener, all of it making this book far more than the sum of its parts.