Shelterwood
Susan Hand Shetterly
(Reviewer - Rebecca Brown)
1999 Tilbury House
ISBN: 0884482561

City-girl Sophie discovers the woods & how to take care of them for the future.

While spending the summer with her grandfather on a hill overlooking the woods, Sophie learns to tell the different kinds of trees apart, what they need to thrive & grow, & how the bigger trees provide shelter for the smaller ones.

Sophie's grandfather is a logger, & people tell her, “No one knows trees like your grandfather does.” She watches as he harvests them, telling her how they'll be cut into boards to build houses & furniture, & how he lets the tallest, wind-firm trees stay, so they'll drop their seeds & start a new generations.

Shelterwood is a perennial joy. A story to be read every year, no matter where you live. Illustrator Rebecca Haley McCall's images are endearing & memorable, as too what Susan Hand Shetterly has to teach about what timber loggers do, the forest in which they work & the creatures who live there.

Outstanding!

More from Susan Hand Shetterly: The Tinker of Salt Cove
(07/03/05)

Rebecca