Sequoia

by Tony Johnston, Wendell Minor (Illustrator)

Overview

Standing tall above the tree line, Sequoia stretches his ancient arms and gathers clouds to him. He watches as days, seasons, years pass by. His branches are home to owls and choirs of frogs. Beneath his broad canopy, a world grows.

This is his story. Through controlled verse and luscious illustration, Tony Johnston and Wendell Minor do justice to the enormous figure of the sequoia tree. A Neal Porter Book

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781596437272
Publisher:	Roaring Brook Press
Publication date:	09/23/2014
Pages:	40
Sales rank:	262,217
Product dimensions:	10.10(w) x 10.20(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	4 - 6 Years

About the Author

Tony Johnston has written many award-winning books for young readers, including Bone By Bone By Bone (Roaring Brook Press). Since her youth she has been devoted to nature. Mrs. Johnston has a ranch in California, where evenings she sits on the porch and gathers sunsets to her.

Wendell Minor is the illustrator of over fifty children's books including The Last Train (Roaring Brook Press, 2010). His interest in nature and the environment has taken him from the east coast to the west coast and everywhere in between, most recently the majestic sequoias in this book.

Editorial Reviews

Minor's gouache watercolor paintings of the forest, with their glorious, nuanced sunrises, expressive owls and deer, and star-filled skies, create the sensation that we are in the presence of the profound…This beautiful armchair visit to a sequoia tree may indeed make its readers "look up in wonder at the beauty and majesty of nature," as Johnston writes in the author's note.

The New York Times Book Review - Jacqueline Briggs Martin

06/09/2014
Johnston’s (The Cat with Seven Names) homage to the giant sequoias of California opens at dawn, as one of these towering trees “watches the/ clearing/ quietly/ fill with/ deer. He watches the/ sky/ burn blue at/ the rim.” Spare verse describes the tree as “he” experiences the seasons in turn: the sounds of spring, summer forest fires and thunderstorms, the waning light and migrations of fall, and a winter snowfall at sunset. “He throws wide/ his ancient/ arms/ with joy/ and gathers/ snow to him.” Minor’s (Edward Hopper Paints His World) softly-edged gouache watercolors provide panoramic views of and from the sentinel sequoia. In several scenes, readers glimpse inside the tree’s tallest branches as an owl takes flight or a woodpecker works away at the bark. Shifting perspectives, from high atop the tree’s canopy to animal dens beneath the forest floor, maintain visual interest. This stirring tribute portrays the millennia-old tree as a serene observer and wise caretaker of its surroundings. Endnotes offer factual information on the giant sequoia, comparing it to the taller yet younger coast redwood. Ages 3–6. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

In quiet, lyrical text, Johnston personifies a giant sequoia tree and brings it to life.” —School Library Journal

“A giant sequoia experiences the world around "him" in Johnston's romantic, image-laden, anthropomorphic rendering of the life experiences of the largest tree on the planet.” —Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

Mornings/ he stands/ with a thin/ shawl/ of sun upon/ his shoulders.” Free verse filled with emotion, tells what the giant Sequoia tree sees, hears, and does through the seasons and years. He sees a deer and owls as waters flow again in spring. On a double page turned sideways “…he stretches/ his ancient/ arms/ and gathers/ clouds to him.” He smells the shimmering summer heat and sudden storm, and sometimes a fire. He feels the chill amid the drifting autumn leaves. The birds depart; snow falls. Finally: “Then he reaches/ high his ancient/ arms/ and gathers/ stars to him.” The double-page illustrations are naturalistic but also impressionistic, filled with a spiritual quality. They portray the entire scene around the giant tree as it changes. There are additional notes on Sequoias plus a map. Do not miss the end pages. Reviewer: Ken Marantz and Sylvia Marantz; Ages 4 to 8.

Children's Literature - Ken Marantz and Sylvia Marantz

02/01/2015
K-Gr 3—In quiet, lyrical text, Johnston personifies a giant sequoia tree and brings it to life. Readers follow the tree through the seasons: "Summers, from his post above lower trees, he sniffs the breeze. Sometimes he feels the very heat, shimmering everywhere…Autumns, among shifting drifts of leaves, he feels a chill entering his bones." Minor's luminous goauche paintings successfully capture the grandeur of these trees with dramatic shifts in perspective, from standing at the base of the tree gazing up to perching near the canopy, looking over the forest. Numerous animals that make their homes among the sequoias are shown in the illustrations, but not all are mentioned in the text. Though this is more of a poetic introduction than a research source, a one-page note at the end explains the difference between sequoias and their coastal cousins the redwoods, identifies threats to the trees, and includes a helpful range map. VERDICT Teachers may want to use this title to demonstrate the use of figurative language or pair it with Jason Chin's Redwoods (Roaring Brook, 2009) for a unit on California giants.—Jackie Partch, Multnomah County Library, Portland, OR

School Library Journal

2014-07-16
A giant sequoia experiences the world around "him" in Johnston's romantic, image-laden, anthropomorphic rendering of the life experiences of the largest tree on the planet. This sequoia "feels," "waits," "counts," "gazes," "tells"—all verbs attributed to Sequoiadendron giganteum. The author describes large and small events that occur: Birds and beasts visit and shelter, weather changes, forest fires rage, seasons turn. It is all very poetic and expresses the author's subjective understanding of the sequoia. Fortunately, facts about the great trees are nicely summarized in endnotes. Minor's gouache watercolors convey the action and present a more realistic picture of the theme. He shows the tree, the changing seasons, the sky, the animals and birds that live in the tree's branches, roots, environs. Occasionally he demands a 90-degree turn of the book, so readers can see a (relatively) tiny bear dwarfed by the towering tree. His paintings give the words life, although the animals are not identified: Is that a ground squirrel or a chipmunk? a crow or a raven? and what species is the owl flying in the moonlight? Perhaps it does not matter, since this is impressionistic free verse, lines often breaking with no apparent poetic need, rather than natural history.Minor's paintings are glorious; the textual conceit is a little overdone. (Picture book. 3-7)

Kirkus Reviews