Review of The Trees Have Hearts
PUBLISHED ON BETWEEN THE BOOK COVERS
Reviewed by Carla Ives
It’s very unusual for me to read a children’s book as my children are all grown up now and there are no grands quite yet. I am a huge fan of reading to your child, though, and I read to mine for as long as I can remember. They are now three excellent readers. But when I met Mrs. D and she gave me a gift of several of her beautiful books, I decided to revisit the world of children’s books.
Although I have several of Mrs. D’s books, I began with The Trees Have Hearts as I was intrigued by her story of coming to America in 1992 with her two young children to a new world and a new life.
The Trees Have Hearts tells the story of a beautiful little girl with dark curly hair who is very sad because she can not make friends. Why? She can not speak the language. This little girl came from a faraway place and the other children make fun of her because she can not talk to them.
In the garden of her new home are three very beautiful trees. Hearing games crying to herself, the trees attempt to make friends with the little girl. How is this possible, you ask? Because, the according to the Chance Plum Tree, “Trees speak all the languages in the world.”
The little girl has good times and adventures with her trees and even Old Man Wind gets in on the games. She is lonely no more. But as time passes and her language skills improve, she begins to make new human friends. Not wanting to lose her, the trees make a pact that they will shelter all of her human friends, too.
There is much more to the story, but you’ll have to read it for yourself. One thing you will notice about The Trees Have Hearts that is it’s much longer than a regular American story book. Mrs. D told me That she was shocked when she came here by how short our kids’ stories were. Her children would be like, “that’s all?” So she decided her stories would be more like the stories she grew up with in the Ukraine. The book is 8.5 “by 11” in size and has approximately 40 readable pages.
Highlighting the story are the beautiful illustrations by Juli Hasegawa. They are graceful and gentle really fit the tone of this lovely story. The Trees Have Hearts has also earned the Mom’s Choice Award for Excellence.
Incidentally, Mrs. D is Olga D’Agostino. I got to sit down and talk with her recently and learned about her stories and what inspired her to write in a language that was not her own. I have a few more of Mrs. D’s delightful stories to tell you about and you’ll be getting tidbits of Mrs. D’s story with each upcoming book review.
If you’d like to read your child a very special story, I heartily recommend The Trees Have Hearts. It may take you more than one night to get through it, but I think every little girl would love to sit on your lap and hear the story of the child from far away who was lonely because she could not speak the language. Children of all ages will understand the little girl’s pain and empathize with her journey to new friendships, games spurred on by loving garden trees.
You can get your own copy of The Trees Have Hearts from Amazon or Barnes & Noble .
Mrs. D kindly provided me with a copy of this book to read and review. All opinions are my own.
About Carla Ives
My Pen, Your Voice
Founder and CEO Between The Book Covers
Between The Book Covers features the oftentimes opinionated book reviews of Carla Ives, a self-described Jill of all trades, master of a few.
Carla loves history books, historical fiction and historical romance, all of which you will find on this site, along with any other books that may come her way.
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Review of The Trees Have Hearts: A Very Special Story
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