100 Books Like Our Tree Named Steve

This may be one of the most-read books in our house, which is saying something for a book about a gardening aficionado named Evan, whose dog dies in the first few spreads.

It’s hard for even our 2-year-old not to bristle when Evan, in his grief, violently destroys his beloved garden. But watching how he unintentionally nurtures a once prickly vine into a prized-winning pumpkin has all of us cheering with each read.

I love how this story doesn’t shy away from the deep pain that comes with losing someone we love and doesn’t sugarcoat the long, often lonely process of coming back to the surface for air. Kids are ready for this honesty, and this book does it with a gentle but honest sense of purpose. 

About 9 months after my 3-year-old son sat in the room with us as his uncle quietly passed away, he began having panic attacks about dying. When I took him to a therapist, I realized that I’d done just about everything wrong in how I handled this loss with him. The therapist gave me this book.

The text is simple and focuses on what is important to the child, including what they are seeing in the people around them. Grief is scary to experience, and when you don’t quite understand what’s happening, it’s terrifying to watch your caretakers experience it. This book helps process all of that. I recommend inserting the name of the relative that died into all the places where the text mentions “grandma.”

One of the most frustrating parts of losing someone involves all the well-meaning but ultimately terrible things people say to you. It’s even harder for children who often have to grapple with euphemisms like “passed away” or “in a better place.” This book provides space to feel anger about these phrases and talk about why they don’t make sense. It also broaches feelings of missing, the scary feeling of seeing grownups grieve loudly, and gives little ideas for remembering your loved one, including providing a place in the back to write their name and paste in a picture.

When I picked up Rabbit and the Motorbike, I didn’t know it had a death in it. I grabbed it for the beautiful cover and artwork. But the story inside deeply resonated with me, especially so soon after releasing my own grief book. Rabbit has a friend, Dog, who rides all over on his motorbike and comes back and tells Rabbit all his great adventures. Rabbit never goes anywhere but he loves Dog’s stories. One day, Dog dies and leaves his motorbike to Rabbit. Rabbit is mystified. Why would Dog leave him his motorbike? Rabbit never goes anywhere. But then one day he does, and the whole world opens up and now Rabbit has stories of his own to tell.

A beautiful book about how life goes on after grief and learning to live fully and make our own stories.

I particularly love books that combine the trifecta of engaging story; interesting, complex characters; and good writing with real substance (as in, I stop to think about the content). Greenwood has all of these.

The writing is particularly lyrical—I could fill this space with beautiful quotes. The author takes the reader through four generations of a family, with each generation intimately connected to trees in different ways—from lumbermen to environmental activist to woodcraftsman to botanist.

And as the author “takes a core” through a family tree, the story captures both the characters’ relationships to one another as well as to the world in which they live. I cannot recommend this book enough!

Red, a monoecious oak tree, narrates this luminous and beautifully illustrated novel. Red is two hundred and sixteen rings old and happily provides shelter for seven opossums, four raccoons, five owls, six skunks, and a witty crow named Bongo. Together, Red and the animals concoct a plan to support Samar, a girl whose family has just moved into the neighborhood. Samar hasn’t made any friends yet, and she’s feeling sad and lonely. Wishtree is about inclusion and community, but at its heart, it’s a love song to the trees and creatures that call urban areas home. Have tissues ready: Samar’s comforting middle-of-the-night visits to Red and Bongo will have readers wiping away a tear or two. 

We think the forest is made up of trees, but this book shows us how some trees are connected underground by mycorrhizal fungi. I love trees, but we have to give the little guys some credit too, and sometimes ‘the little guys,’ i.e., underground fungi, are not so little. Fungi to the rescue!

I like how this book shows that in the case of Douglas fir trees and some other species, nutrients can travel between trees and support new tree seedlings as they grow in the shadow of giant neighboring trees, waiting for their turn to soak up the sunlight. I think of this book as a children’s version of Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard. 

This story, with wonderful illustrations, is a different way to believe in yourself. A girl wants a pet for her birthday—a tree! Her parents reluctantly give in. She finds a little tree, names it Fido, puts it in a pot and takes it everywhere in her wagon. A neighbor kid says his cat is a real pet. When the tree is too big for her wagon, her dad helps her plant it in her yard. Now she has a tree she can climb, sit in and read books, surrounded by birds! She says, “A tree is everyone’s friend.” 

Like me, when he was a kid, Paul was told he couldn’t write. He got an F, with the note: “Get a tutor.”

This was the book that made me look again at trees, seeing them for the incredible organisms that they are. Deakin goes on an amazing adventure from Suffolk to Kazakhstan, Australia, and beyond, trying to get to the heart of why wood and trees have such profound meaning for us. If you like Wildwood, you could also try Waterlog, in which he wild-swims his way through the British Isles. He’s the perfect companion for the armchair adventurer, and a very genial writer.

I first became aware of this beautiful book when I shared a stage with the illustrator at a literary event. I was captivated by her cover illustration which is like a ‘Where’s Wally’ tree containing 70 hidden animals. Once I got my copy home (and after I found most of the animals) I flipped to explanations of the superpowers of trees. These are guaranteed to shift your youngsters’ perspectives. Nonfiction stories invite them to imagine themselves in the field with well-known conservationists and activists who have dedicated themselves to saving trees and their inhabitants. I love that so many of these heroes are women which, hopefully, will encourage more girls to embrace science.