The Last Tree in the City
Carnavas, P. (2017). Last Tree in the City. London: New Frontier Publishing.
More About the Book and Author Found Here!
Genre: Children's Fiction
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Summary:
This story entails a young boy named Edward who frequently visits the very last tree that is living in his city. It allows him to forget about the hustle and bustle of the environment around him, and he and his duck friend enjoy the beauty that a piece of nature has to offer them. However, a sad day comes where the last tree dies. After some consideration, Edward finds a way to preserve it by planting the branches it left behind, which soon allows the who city to blossom into a bright and colorful world opposed to the cement buildings that previously surrounded him.
Target Audience:
The target audience is towards younger children, however I think it is a book that children of all ages would enjoy because it is a cute story with a bold message of preservation attached to it. Any child who has a love for being outdoors would be able to connect with our main character, Edward, because it evokes them to think of what their own worlds would be like without trees! No shade, no beautiful colors in the fall or lush green leaves in the spring- how lifeless our world would look!
Evaluating the Story:
Based on Donna Norton's characteristics of high quality literature, this book delivers the message of the story well. Since it is directed primarily towards children between the ages of 4 to 6, the story is brief and straightforward, containing familiar concepts and simple illustrations that compliment each page. It is important that a picture book compliments each picture, because then it allows children to process both the text and the image, instead of deducing the entire story by viewing only the pictures. Everything works in harmony well enough to hold their interest, and the language is appropriate for their age level. The theme of this book is also important to make note of, since themes should relate to children's needs and what they understand, which in this situation is a connection to nature/the environment. All children need to feel a connection to the Earth in some way because they, too, are apart of nature. Another great thing about this book is that it avoids stereotypes of race and sex, an aspect that is completely ignored because the focus of the story is on preservation- something children of all backgrounds can oblige to! I would truly recommend this book for any read aloud or children who are beginners because it is easy to follow and there are a plethora of ways to extend the story into fun activities, both inside or in the outdoors!
Reader Response Activity:
For this activity, I created a worksheet that asks the who, what, where, how and why of the story. These are essential questions for children to reflect on because it evokes them to refer back to the story and starts them on their beginner summarizing skills. Each question only would need a sentence or two, and in the last box I asked them to draw a picture of something from the story so that they could engage their own skills and imagination. This could be filled out individually, OR even gone over together as a class aloud, and the students would be following along writing. You could include these questions in a variety of other activities, too! It is not just limited to this worksheet.
