Staff Picks
An Arbor Day Celebration
- Richland Library
- Thursday, November 19, 2020
Collection
Arbor Day (the first Friday in December) is the beginning of tree planting season in South Carolina.
Celebrate safely by finding moments to walk among the trees and appreciate their quiet majesty. Reading can also deepen our knowledge of even every day subjects. This curated selection of books offers titles for everyone - stories about the importance of trees, the science and even hands-on activities.
“A tree is nice to plant. You dig the biggest hole you can and put the little tree in. Then you pour in lots of water and then the dirt. You hang the shovel back in the garage. Every day for years and YEARS you watch the little tree grow. You say to people, ‘I planted that tree.'" - A Tree is Nice by Janice May Udry

Wishtree
Published in 2017
Trees can't tell jokes, but they can certainly tell stories. . . . Red is an oak tree who is many rings old. Red is the neighborhood "wishtree"?people write their wishes on pieces of cloth and tie them to Red's branches. Along with her crow friend Bongo and other animals who seek refuge in Red's hollows, this "wishtree" watches over the neighborhood. You might say Red has seen it all. Until a new family moves in. Not everyone is welcoming, and Red's experiences as a wishtree are more important than ever. Funny, deep, warm, and nuanced, Wishtree is Newbery Medalist and New York Times ?bestselling author Katherine Applegate at her very best?writing from the heart, and from a completely unexpected point of view.

Wishtree
Published in 2017
Trees can't tell jokes, but they can certainly tell stories. . . . Red is an oak tree who is many rings old. Red is the neighborhood "wishtree"?people write their wishes on pieces of cloth and tie them to Red's branches. Along with her crow friend Bongo and other animals who seek refuge in Red's hollows, this "wishtree" watches over the neighborhood. You might say Red has seen it all. Until a new family moves in. Not everyone is welcoming, and Red's experiences as a wishtree are more important than ever. Funny, deep, warm, and nuanced, Wishtree is Newbery Medalist and New York Times ?bestselling author Katherine Applegate at her very best?writing from the heart, and from a completely unexpected point of view.

Wishtree
Published in 2017
"A red oak tree and a crow help their human neighbors work out their differences"-- Provided by publisher.

Wishtree
Published in 2017
An old red oak tree tells how he and his crow friend, Bongo, help their human neighbors get along after a threat against an immigrant family is carved into the tree's trunk.

The Story of Seeds
Published in 2016
Something as small as a seed can have a worldwide impact. Did you know there are top-secret seed vaults hidden throughout the world? And once a seed disappears, that's it?it's gone forever? With the growth of genetically modified foods, the use of many seeds is dwindling?of 80,000 edible plants, only about 150 are being cultivated. With a global cast of men and women, scientists and laypeople, and photographic documentation, Nancy Castaldo chronicles where our food comes from, and more importantly, where it is going as she digs deeper into the importance of seeds in our world. This empowering book also calls young adult readers to action with suggestions as to how they can preserve the variety of one of our most valuable food sources through simple everyday actions. Readers of Michael Pollen will enjoy the depth and fascinatingly intricate social economy of seeds.

The Story of Seeds
From Mendel's Garden to Your Plate, and How There's More of Less to Eat Around the World
Published in 2016
"With the growth of genetically modified foods, the use of many seeds is dwindling--of 80,000 edible plants, only about 150 are being cultivated. With a global cast of men and women, scientists and laypeople, and photographic documentation, Nancy Castaldo chronicles where our food comes from, and more importantly, where it is going as she digs deeper into the importance of seeds in our world"--Amazon.com.

The Great Kapok Tree
A Tale of the Amazon Rain Forest
Published in 1990
The many different animals that live in a great kapok tree in the Brazilian rainforest try to convince a man with an ax of the importance of not cutting down their home.

Wildwood
A Journey Through Trees
Published in 2009
Accompanying famed British nature writer Deakin through the woods of Britain, Europe, Kazakhstan, and Australia in search of what lies behind man's profound and enduring connection with trees. Deakin lives in forest shacks, goes "coppicing" in Suffolk, swims beneath the walnut trees of the Haut-Languedoc, and hunts bushplums with Aboriginal women in the outback. Along the way, he ferrets out the mysteries of woods, detailing the life stories of the timber beams composing his Elizabethan house and searching for the origin of the apple.

The Songs of Trees
Stories from Nature's Great Connectors
Published in 2017
The author repeatedly visits a dozen trees around the world to stop, listen, and look, exploring each tree's connections with webs of fungi, bacterial communities, cooperative and destructive animals, and other plants, and demonstrating how the lives of trees and people are deeply interwoven. Several trees, including a balsam fir in Ontario and an Amazonian ceibo, are located in areas that seem mostly natural, but which are affected by industrial development and climate change. Haskell also turns to trees in places where humans seem to have subdued "nature"--A pear tree on a Manhattan sidewalk, an olive tree in Jerusalem -- demonstrating that wildness permeates every location.

A Weird and Wild Beauty
The Story of Yellowstone, the World's First National Park
Published in 2016
The summer of 1871, a team of thirty-two men set out on the first scientific expedition across Yellowstone. Through uncharted territory, some of the day's most renowned scientists and artists explored, sampled, sketched, and photographed the region's breathtaking wonders-from its white-capped mountain vistas and thundering falls to its burping mud pots and cauldrons of molten magma. At the end of their adventure, the survey packed up their specimens and boarded trains headed east, determined to convince Congress that the country needed to preserve the land from commercial development. They returned with 'stories of wonder hardly short of fairy tales,' to quote the New York Times. With the support of conservationists such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Frederick Law Olmsted, and John Muir, the importance of a national park was secured. On March 1, 1872, Ulysses S. Grant signed the Yellowstone Park Bill into law. It set aside over two million acres of one-of-a-kind wilderness as 'a great national park for the benefit and enjoyment of people.' This important and fascinating book will introduce young adults to the astonishing adventure that led to 'the best idea America ever had.' Today over 130 countries have copied the Yellowstone model, and billions of acres of critical habitat and spectacular scenery are being preserved for all of us to enjoy. This book has a wonderful ecological and historical message for readers ages 12 and up. No book about Yellowstone's founding has been written for this age group before, yet Yellowstone National Park is a major destination for many families, so many readers will likely have heard of Yellowstone or even have visited there. This is a great book for any school library or for history or science classrooms in middle and high school, where information can be used for research projects.

A Weird and Wild Beauty
The Story of Yellowstone, the World's First National Park
Published in 2016
"The summer of 1871, a team of thirty-two men set out on the first scientific expedition across Yellowstone. Through uncharted territory, some of the day's most renowned scientists and artists explored, sampled, sketched, and photographed the region's breathtaking wonders--from its white-capped mountain vistas and thundering falls to its burping mud pots and cauldrons of molten magma. At the end of their adventure, the survey packed up their specimens and boarded trains headed east, determined to convince Congress that the country needed to preserve the land from commercial development. They returned with 'stories of wonder hardly short of fairy tales,' to quote the New York Times. With the support of conservationists such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Frederick Law Olmsted, and John Muir, the importance of a national park was secured. On March 1, 1872, Ulysses S. Grant signed the Yellowstone Park Bill into law. It set aside over two million acres of one-of-a-kind wilderness as 'a great national park for the benefit and enjoyment of people.' This important and fascinating book will introduce young adults to the astonishing adventure that led to 'the best idea America ever had.' Today over 130 countries have copied the Yellowstone model, and billions of acres of critical habitat and spectacular scenery are being preserved for all of us to enjoy. This book has a wonderful ecological and historical message for readers ages 12 and up. No book about Yellowstone's founding has been written for this age group before, yet Yellowstone National Park is a major destination for many families, so many readers will likely have heard of Yellowstone or even have visited there. This is a great book for any school library or for history or science classrooms in middle and high school, where information can be used for research projects"-- Provided by publisher.

The Overstory
A Novel
Published in 2018
A novel of activism and natural-world power presents interlocking fables about nine remarkable strangers who are summoned in different ways by trees for an ultimate, brutal stand to save the continent's few remaining acres of virgin forest.

The Wild Trees
Published in 2007
Hidden away in foggy, uncharted rain forest valleys in Northern California are the largest and tallest organisms the world has ever sustained--the coast redwood trees, Sequoia sempervirens. Ninety-six percent of the ancient redwood forests have been destroyed by logging, but the untouched fragments that remain are among the great wonders of nature. The biggest redwoods have trunks up to thirty feet wide and can rise more than thirty-five stories above the ground, forming cathedral-like structures in the air. Until recently, redwoods were thought to be virtually impossible to ascend, and the canopy at the tops of these majestic trees was undiscovered. In The Wild Trees , Richard Preston unfolds the spellbinding story of Steve Sillett, Marie Antoine, and the tiny group of daring botanists and amateur naturalists that found a lost world above California, a world that is dangerous, hauntingly beautiful, and unexplored. The canopyvoyagers are young--just college students when they start their quest--and they share a passion for these trees, persevering in spite of sometimes crushing personal obstacles and failings. They take big risks, they ignore common wisdom (such as the notion that there's nothing left to discover in North America), and they even make love in hammocks stretched between branches three hundred feet in the air. The deep redwood canopy is a vertical Eden filled with mosses, lichens, spotted salamanders, hanging gardens of ferns, and thickets of huckleberry bushes, all growing out of massive trunk systems that have fused and formed flying buttresses, sometimes carved into blackened chambers, hollowed out by fire, called "fire caves." Thick layers of soil sitting on limbs harbor animal and plant life that is unknown to science. Humans move through the deep canopy suspended on ropes, far out of sight of the ground, knowing that the price of a small mistake can be a plunge to one's death. Preston's account of this amazing world, by turns terrifying, moving, and fascinating, is an adventure story told in novelistic detail by a master of nonfiction narrative. The author shares his protagonists' passion for tall trees, and he mastered the techniques of tall-tree climbing to tell the story in The Wild Trees --the story of the fate of the world's most splendid forests and of the imperiled biosphere itself. From the Hardcover edition.

The Wild Trees
A Story of Passion and Daring
Published in 2007
Famous for immersing himself in his subjects, Preston turns his considerable writing talents to the fascinating study of wild tree canopies. To research this book, Preston learned how to climb giant trees, camped out in them, and interviewed countless forestry experts to offer listeners an in-depth examination of how and why these giant trees should be preserved.

Treecology
30 Activities and Observations for Exploring the World of Trees and Forests
Published in 2016
Presents facts about trees and forest ecology, describing their biology; environment; and the wildlife that live near, on, and off them.

Treecology
30 Activities and Observations for Exploring the World of Trees and Forests.
Published in 2016
An engaging introduction to the ecology of trees and forests, Treecology contains over 100 beautiful color images of trees, leaves, blooms, forest wildlife, and more. Kids learn about the interwoven lives of plants and animals making up the forest community: the food, nesting sites, and safe roosting and resting places that trees and forests provide to wildlife. This useful book also includes "street trees" commonly seen along city streets and parks, allowing any child to learn about their local tree communities. Through 30 simple and fun activities, young readers learn how to obverse the diversity of leaf shapes, the textures of tree bark, and evidence of forest creatures. The activities promote the development of science, writing, math, arts and crafts, and observation skills. Also included are a glossary and list of teacher topics for classroom use.

American Canopy
Trees, Forests, and the Making of a Nation
Published in 2012
In the bestselling tradition of Michael Pollan's "Second Nature," this fascinating and unique historical work tells the remarkable story of the relationship between Americans and trees across the entire span of our nation's history.


Generation Green
The Ultimate Teen Guide to Living an Eco-friendly Life
Published in 2008
This book lays out the inside scoop on the biggest issues affecting our planet, such as global warming and overflowing landfills; offers dozens of tips on how to shop, dress, eat, and travel the green way; includes interviews with teens like you who are involved with fun, innovative green causes; shows that being environmentally conscious can be a natural part of your life -- and your generation's contribution to turning things around.

Tree
A Peek-through Picture Book
Published in 2016
"A book with peek-through holes that let a child view the changes in a tree throughout the four seasons"-- Provided by publisher.

