We are celebrating both Earth Day and Arbor Day this week! It’s a time to encourage stewardship of the land as we look forward to a future of a cleaner, healthier Earth. Arbor Day, a Nebraska-born holiday, specifically celebrates the partnership and history we share with our arboreal comrades that goes back beyond human memory. For today’s Book Club Spotlight, we will be exploring our connection with trees and nature through Mildred D. Taylor’s first book, The Song of the Trees. This novella features illustrations by the legendary Jerry Pinkney, winner of the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award and five Coretta Scott King Awards for illustration. Both Taylor and Pinkney have also received the Coretta Scott-King-Virginia Hamilton award, which is named after a recent Book Club Spotlight Alumnus. Together, they brought Taylor’s family’s stories to life with both beautiful language and artwork.
Cassie Logan and her brothers race through forest. Their laughter and jokes fill the air, high up into the lush canopies above as their house fades into the distance of the early morning light. Cassie pauses, the cool earth beneath her feet… something is wrong. The trees, always stoic but welcoming, are quiet, as if they are frightened. That’s when she hears them. There are lumbermen in the forest- their forest! With her father away for work, only her mother, her grandmother, and siblings are left to stand against Mr. Anderson and his lumbermen forcing their way onto Big Ma’s land. The Logans must stand up for themselves and what is theirs, even if it frightens them.
“Around shaggy-bark hickories and sharp-needled pines, past blue-gray beeches and sturdy black walnuts I sailed while my laughter resounded through the ancient forest, filling every chink.“
– Mildred D. Taylor
While it was the first published, The Song of the Trees is chronologically the third book in the “Logan Family” series, followed by her Newbery Medal Award winning novel Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. This novella can be used as a teaching tool and a stepping stone to introduce readers to the Logan family, their love for their land, family pride, and the time period the series takes place in. Based on her family stories about growing up African American in the deep south, Taylor’s writing is accessible for ages 9 and up. The novellas short pages are filled with beautiful prose and insight that will brighten your heart and leave you wanting more. While her characters face obstacles, the story reaffirms the necessity to have pride in oneself, in your dignity, and to stand up for what’s right, even when it’s hard.
“Throughout my childhood he [my father] impressed upon my sister and me that we were somebody, that we were important and could do anything we set our minds to do or be. He was not the kind of father who demanded A’s on report cards. He was more concerned about how we carried ourselves, how we respected ourselves and others, and how we pursued the principles upon which he hoped we would build our lives. He was constantly reminding us that how we saw ourselves was far more important than how others saw us”
– Mildred T. Taylor’s Newbery Award Acceptance Speech (1977)
If you’re interested in requesting Song of the Trees for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 15 copies. (A librarian must request items)
Taylor, Mildred D. Song of the Trees. Dial Press. 1975.
