Author/illustrator team Marcie Colleen and Aaron Becker team up to tell the story of the Callery pear tree which survived the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11 in this deeply moving picture book. The spare text focuses on the seasonal life of the tree—the white of spring blossoms, green of summer leaves, red of fall foliage, and bare limbs of winter—the cataclysmic interruption of that life the day it was buried in steel and rubble from the collapsed towers, and the slow healing process after it was removed to a nursery in the Bronx. The beautiful watercolor artwork depicts all of this, while also capturing a parallel story of a young boy, photographed in front of the tree in happier times, and then visiting it, and the 9/11 Memorial, as an adult with his own child...

Survivor Tree is an immensely poignant and powerful book, and I found myself close to tears on more than one occasion, while reading it. The text is minimal but emotionally resonant, and the artwork beautiful. The book was published in August of 2021, shortly before the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, and is one of several which addresses the subject of the Callery pear survivor tree. These other titles include Branches of Hope: The 9/11 Survivor Tree by author Ann Magee and illustrator Nicole Wong, This Very Tree: A Story of 9/11, Resilience, and Regrowth by author/illustrator Sean Rubin (both published in 2021), as well as the 2020 Miracle of Little Tree: The 9/11 Survivor Tree's Incredible Story, by Linda S. Foster. Of course, anniversaries and significant dates do tend to produce a rush of books on the same topic, in the children's book world, so that is not surprising. That said, I think this specific subject is particularly fitting for a children's book, as it offers a fairly gentle and hopeful entree to a difficult and dark subject, one which emphasizes resilience and healing, rather than focusing on atrocity. As it happens, the subject of a tree's survival of human conflict can also be found in such titles as Gaye Sanders and Pamela Behrend's The Survivor Tree, which tells the story of an elm tree which survived the Oklahoma City Bombing of 1995, as well as Sandra Moore and Kazumi Wilds' The Peace Tree from Hiroshima: The Little Bonsai with a Big Story.

In any case, this was a beautiful and heartbreaking book, one I would recommend to picture book readers looking for 9/11 stories that emphasize survival, resilience, healing and hope. ( )

The tall, narrow trim size of this book is perfect for both the tree and the towers. The text is spare, exactly what is needed and no more. Before: the tree grows between the twin towers. During: "Under the blackened remains, the tree lay crushed and burned." After: the tree was rescued, rehabilitated, and returned to its original site.

Back matter includes more information about "the survivor tree," an author's note, an artist's note, and a photograph of the tree in spring 2018.

This is a sensitive work on a difficult topic, and its slantwise approach emphasizes life and resilience rather than dwelling on the disaster and death of that day. ( )