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Summary
Summary
When an ice storm snaps a small girl's favorite branch from the tree in her yard, she's crestfallen. The girl's mom says it's just a branch. But not to her! "That was the branch I sat on, jumped from, played under. It was my castle, my spy base, my ship ..." Luckily, her neighbor Mr. Frank understands. He says the branch has "potential." "What's potential?" she asks. "It means it's worth keeping." And so, with imagination and spirit, and Mr. Frank's guidance and tools, the girl transforms the broken branch into something whole and new, giving it another purpose, and her another place to treasure. In this endearing picture book, author Mireille Messier explores a young child's experience with loss and renewal. Though the little girl is heartbroken that her special perch in the tree is gone, the kindness and vision of her neighbor, combined with her own creativity and determination, help her recognize that it can have a new life in a different form. The charming intergenerational relationship adds depth and richness to the story, as it becomes clear they both offer something valuable to each other. The story is vividly and warmly illustrated by renowned, award-winning artist, Pierre Pratt. This book would work well for character education lessons on perseverance, teamwork and initiative. It also provides an excellent example of caring for the environment by reusing salvaged materials, making it a terrific pick for Maker Spaces and STEAM lessons.
Author Notes
Mireille Messier is a Montreal-born, Ottawa-raised and now Toronto-based children's writer with a background in broadcasting and theater. Since the launch of her first book in 2003, Mireille has published over twenty books. When she's not at her computer writing, she thinks up new stories while she walks, drives or sails her big old boat. Mireille lives in Toronto with her husband, two wonderful teenage daughters and two extremely fluffy cats.
Pierre Pratt is the internationally acclaimed, award-winning illustrator of over 50 books for children. He lives and works in Montreal, Quebec, and in Lisbon, Portugal.
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2-When a girl's favorite tree branch breaks and falls during an ice storm, she wants to keep it forever because "it's not just a branch to me!" An elderly neighbor understands that a branch can be worth keeping, and together they combine his tools and expertise along with her elbow grease and imagination to reveal "what's hiding in the wood." The gentle, straightforward tale conveys deeper themes of friendship, hope, and imagination with grace and insight. Readers get to know the girl and her world slowly but steadily through her direct narration and the excellent gouache illustrations. Her words reflect a child's perspective through basic emotions, observant descriptions, and natural dialogue. The deceptively simple illustrations use rich colors to express the general mood and individual characters with equal effectiveness. The pictures provide a tangible feel to the girl's home, her neighborhood, and the workshop, while the human figures draw the eye with strong lines, fluent postures, and splashes of rich color. The girl's creation, shown on the satisfying final page, is a rope swing attached to the same tree, which neatly provides her with a new vehicle for her imagination. VERDICT A quiet but powerful tale supported by a strong blend of words and pictures. Perfect for sharing one-on-one or in a small group.-Steven Engelfried, Wilsonville Public Library, OR © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
An ice storm damages trees throughout a girl's neighborhood, including her favorite branch from the tree in her yard. Still in her pajamas and slippers, she runs outside to survey the scene: "That was the branch I sat on, jumped from, played under," she mourns. "It was my castle, my spy base, my ship." Messier (Fatima and the Clementine Thieves) fully inhabits the perspective of her unnamed heroine, drawing readers into her sadness about the loss of a special hangout and her clear-eyed observations of her environment (other neighbors, collecting fallen branches, "carry them to the curb, making big heaps. Like beaver dams in the city"). Pratt (Gustave) captures the wintry setting in rough, forceful brushstrokes and washes of pale blue and cream. Mr. Frank, an elderly neighbor with a workshop, encourages the girl to see the potential in the branch, and with some planning, teamwork, and patience ("We draw plans. We measure. We saw. We saw some more"), they transform it into a rope swing. It's a gentle reminder that keeping an open mind can help turn problems into opportunities. Ages 3-7. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
A little girl mourns when a large branch breaks off from her favorite tree during an ice storm: That was the branch I sat on, jumped from, played under. It was my castle, my spy base, my ship As she stands guard over the branch so the cleanup crew wont take it away orhorrors!chop it up, she strikes up a conversation with next-door neighbor Mr. Frank. Luckily, he makes things from salvaged wood: With some imagination, each broken piece can become something great! The little girl studies the branch to see whats hiding inside the wood. When she figures it out, she whispers it to Mr. Frank, and together they make a plan. This is the premise for a small but satisfying story of intergenerational friendship, cooperation, creativity, and the labor that goes into creating something worthwhile. Pratts art is, as ever (Wheres Pup?, rev. 3/03; That New Animal, rev. 3/05), partly expressionistic/childlike and partly painterly/glorious. Cool wintry colors dominate on the double-page spreads that show the beauty and destructiveness of the ice storm; warmer colors bring out the literal and figurative warmth inside Mr. Franks workshop, where the two bond over their joint project. Thick brushstrokes prevail, whether on bold double-page spreads of the wintry landscape, or in the several page-turns of spot art that document the weeks of work it takes for the little girl and Mr. Frank to unlock the branchs potential and turn it intoa swing. martha v. parravano (c) Copyright 2016. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
New York Review of Books Review
A PICTURE BOOK about looking around is like a song about listening to the radio - what may seem like an easy or even redundant idea becomes, in the right hands, something luminous and perfectly devised. A stack of new books about young people learning to examine the world all strive, with varying approaches, to capture the magic of songs that sing gloriously about themselves. (Roxy Music's "Oh Yeah," I'm looking at you.) "The Branch" is by the prolific author Mireille Messier and even-more-prolific illustrator Pierre Pratt, both from the nation of Canada, where, legend has it, the rich artistic tradition comes from enduring the dark and dangerous winters. The book's unnamed heroine's imagination runs wild in the winter - an early spread finds her dreaming of being aloft in a tree during an icy storm, in full queen regalia, including a crown of icicles, while ordinary (presumably Canadian) citizens are slipping to the ground. In a refreshing reverse from so many picture books, the world of imagination collapses into the everyday, when the storm claims a thick wooden victim. "That was the branch I sat on, jumped from, played under," she mourns. "It was my castle, my spy base, my ship." And for a moment, surrounded by folks cleaning up the neighborhood, she seems quite lost. Help arrives in the form of Deus Ex Next-Door Neighbor, and quicker than you can say "four-page montage," the two of them have looked carefully at the branch and rebuilt it into a swing, which hangs from the surviving branches on the last, brilliant green page. Pratt's slashy thick lines, which make the ice storm so dangerous-looking, are a canopy of spring leaves for the little heroine, whose dead-pan face finally breaks into a smile under the simple last line of text. Messier, alas, often gives us a paragraph when one short line would do, crowding some of the artwork and slowing the pace just when you want it, well, to swing. Nana, the elderly heroine of Simona Ciraolo's "The Lines on Nana's Face," had quite the swinging time back in the day. Now, in advanced age, even when she's happy on her birthday, "it looks like she might also be a bit sad, and a little surprised, and slightly worried, all at the same time." The young narrating granddaughter, bright and squirmy in Ciraolo's loose and colorful style, sits with Nana in her solarium and gets a story to go with each wrinkle on her grandmother's face. The page turns take us back through Nana's life: a rural childhood, teenage frolics, young love, marriage, moving, taking us up to the moment of the grandchild's birth. Some may find the premise a little off-putting - the girl seems old enough to be told not to pry into people's wrinkles - and Nana's life contains few surprises. But the art and the pace sell the journey. Nana and the girl talk in bright close-ups; the flashbacks are wordless full spreads, encouraging us to supply the missing information. "The Branch" suggests that life requires occasional elbow grease; Nana, less excitingly, suggests that life just ends up happening. But what else is there to say, really, at a birthday party? It's also difficult to know what to say about the magnificent Jerry Pinkney, whose every-award-winning impressionistic realism (or is it realistic impressionism?) is both a wildly imitated style and unmistakably his. This time around he's teamed up with Richard Jackson, a long-time editor and publisher of children's literature who began a career writing picture books following his retirement. His first picture book, "Have a Look, Says Book," was loopy with wordplay; "In Plain Sight" is something of a visual treasure hunt. "Sophie lives with Mama and Daddy and Grandpa, who lives by the window," the book begins, and we see Grandpa waving goodbye to Sophie as she boards a school bus aglow with Pinkney's soft yellow. When Sophie gets home from school, the game begins: Grandpa has hidden small everyday objects around the apartment, and Sophie has to find them. "You have to look," he reminds her, and again and again, in plain sight but difficult to spot, are the paper clip, the rubber band ... and eventually, Sophie herself, behind the curtains. Grandpa's wheelchair, omnipresent and unmentioned, is a quiet bit of visibility and the driving force behind a game that keeps you in the same floor of a brownstone all day long. But the book's prime appeal is that it leads you to stare and stare at the work of Jerry Pinkney - one of the great American pastimes. "The Branch" has you look at an object, "The Lines on Nana's Face" has you look at a person, "In Plain Sight" has you look around the room. "A Small Thing ... but Big" has you look around the world - although, when you are the very young Lizzie, the whole world is a little gated park. With an unmentioned mother (or babysitter?) keeping quiet watch on a bench, Lizzie encounters something scary that stops her in her tracks - "She ran close to a dog" - and then, in short conversations with a dapper old man, gets more and more confident. Patting a dog, walking a dog, walking a dog by yourself - each step is "a small thing, but big." It's an audacious theme, risky in its simplicity. But if Tony Johnston gets a little pushy with the title phrase, his care in the quiet repetition, giving words like "worry," "quiet" and "springingly" growing power, makes the text as delicious as a brave afternoon. Hadley Hooper's illustrations - in a breezy, twee territory not far from William Bee and Ed Fotheringham - move us all around the park, zooming in on blades of grass or rising to an aerial view as Lizzie gets bolder and bolder. The world here, as in any good picture book, is wondrous. One only wants to keep looking. DANIEL HANDLER'S new book by Lemony Snicket, "Goldfish Ghost" will be published in the spring.