Children's Book: The Happiness Tree

There is a sprightly, willful, full-of-life, child on my street who inspires me with her love of all things earth. While her father is building a cob chicken coop, for the chickens that she adores with shrill delight, she dances about, almost bare except for the mud-fancies, and reminds my heart of the childhood love for mudbaths. This firefly was born long before her expected arrival, although her early arrival was anticipated due to complications with the pregnancy. Each week that she stayed within her mother's womb, her parents gave her another middle name. One of those names is Acorn, after the very astute saying, "mighty oaks from little acorns grow", and she has lived up to that name.

The Happiness Tree: Celebrating the Gifts of Trees We Treasure, written by Andrea Albam Gosline and illustrated by Lisa Burnett Bossi, is a story of ten little seeds that grow to be ten mighty trees with gifts of the heart to share with the world. It is a book about loving our wise arbors. The oak tree is the tree of hope; how fittingly that relates to the story of how my young neighbor was given her second middle name. Each of the ten different trees in this book have a gift to share: hope, love, courage, gratitude, peace, compassion, tolerance, generosity, honesty, and happiness. There is a love for trees that really shines through in this book both in words and in pictures. It is a wonderful book, and I think I know a little nut that shall be getting it on her birthday if she doesn't already have it.