There Was a Tree is a gorgeous and multilayered adaptation of the well-known cumulative children’s song, “The Green Grass Grew All Around,” as imagined in an African setting. Caldecott Honor winner, Rachel Isadora’s incredible illustrations for this piece, done in oil paints and printed paper, are saturated with the rich colors of Africa, and so full of visual interest and texture that they almost feel tactile in nature. One feels like they could reach out and touch those textures and feel the warmth of the sun and the heat of the African day. Each brilliantly decorated page is framed by brightly colored borders that resemble Kente cloth and add to the African imagery. The typeface is well-spaced and easy to read, and the lyrical text stays true to the original words of the song introducing each new element bolded in brightly colored text in all caps. As the elements of the song begin to accumulate, small rebus images of the items appear as picture clues embedded therein. The real story, however, is told through the African imagery accompanying the text, which not only illustrates the words of the song, but also carries along a deeper, even more beautiful story of its own. Beginning with the book’s front end papers that depict the morning sun rising and ending with a delightful nighttime scene complete with moon and stars on the back end papers Isadora’s captivating images tell the story of the beautiful Umbrella Acacia tree—a native African tree—as it grows. On the first page an African mother with a young toddler in hand and an infant on her back observe a hole in the ground, then on each page we slowly see the beautiful tree begin to grow and thrive as it provides shelter and a nourishment for many different African animals including a mother bird and her tiny baby. The images and the song combine to become a sort of allegory for the passage of time—as the African sun rises in the sky we observe the tree growing and the animals all enjoying the tree, then as the sun begins to set we notice two young children, might they be the same ones from the beginning of the story who have grown like the tree has grown? They stand in the shade of the Umbrella Acacia tree watching the mother and baby bird take flight as the sun sets in a brilliant display of color. This lovely book includes a clearly labeled rebus key at the end as well as the sheet music and lyrics to the original song. When sharing this book, I would direct attention to the beautiful African imagery, I might ask the children to imagine the warm sun on their faces and the sounds of exotic animals in the air. This book absolutely must be sung aloud, and the children could help do this. A fun extension activity for this book would be to laminate the “rebus” style pictures like the ones used as picture clues in the story and use them to retell/sing the story together. Children might help sing the book using the smaller picture clue images embedded in the text. Afterwards, we could play a simple sequencing game using the images from the song, or children could use torn construction paper pieces in a variety of colors to create their own beautiful trees. Rachel Isadora's illustrations are so bold, bright and full of texture.There isn't a book she does that I don't think is beautiful. I attempted to do this as a singing book at Storytime and failed. In part, because I really don't know the tune as well as I thought I did. The little illustrations are pretty (and if hand done-WOW) but they really didn't work for me as prompt. My brain could not process looking at a picture and singing at the same time and neither could the little ones. I would have preferred text.
What do You think about There Was A Tree (2012)?
Different take on the song "There's a whole in the bottom of the sea". Very cute.
—cassm0ney
This is a cute rebus book with collage illustrations. definitely participatory.
—karnalismo
Loved that there were more verses from the song that I didn't know previously.
—kutra
