The Great Kapok Tree: A Tale of the Amazon Rain Forest

This inspired look at what the Kapok tree means to the creatures that live in it-and what rain forests mean to the world's ecology--was at the forefront of the ecological movement ten years ago and continues to resonate profoundly with children everywhere.

Publishers Weekly

In this breathtakingly beautiful picture book, Cherry combines illustrations that reveal a naturalist's reverence for beauty with a mythlike story that explains the ecological importance of saving the rain forests. The text is not a didactic treatise, but a simply told story about a man who falls asleep while chopping down a kapok tree. The forest's inhabitants--snakes, butterflies, a jaguar, and finally a child--each whisper in his ear about the terrible consequences of living in ``a world without trees'' or beauty, about the interconnectedness of all living things. When the man awakens and sees all the extraordinary creatures around him, he leaves his ax and ``walks out of the rain forest.'' A map showing the earth's endangered forests and the creatures that dwell within ends the book which, like the rain forests themselves, is ``wondrous and rare.'' Ages 4-8. (Mar.)