Tereasa Surratt

Bright, boldly colored art helps to tell the story of a tree much loved by both the local wildlife and their neighboring humans. When one spring the tree doesn’t come back to life and its existence is threatened, the animals gather the experts and artists from the human community to find a way to preserve it. It is a sweet imaginative story made all the more poignant by the author’s note telling of the true story behind this tree. Children will delight in its reading and will probably decide that chipmunks would make wonderful friends. This would be the story time book that kids will ask for again and again if only to hear about the clever forest creatures.

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Although the subtitle has some relevance to the book, there really is more to it than mere shopping (even thrilling flea-market and thrift-store hunts). The book begins with the author joining her husband in the purchase of a historic lakeside camp in Wisconsin that held profound meaning in his childhood. The checquered history of the camp is covered (in adequate detail, but more would have been fun), and then comes the part where they begin finding random treasures in storerooms and attics, displaying them, and adding to them. She goes room-by-functional-room and throws in some social history as well (uses and former importance of aprons is treated in the chapter on Kitchen, for instance). It really is a delightful book to read, and is profusely illustrated with pictures of various vintage objects and a few historic camp photos.… (mehr)