Redwood

By Jason Chin
 http://jasonchin.net/
Published Roaring Book Press, 2009
Annotation
A young boy finds this Redwood book on a bench and begins traveling through a wonderment of time. A celebration of the oldest trees on the planet through the eyes of a young boy.
Personal Reaction
This  book illustrates the perspective of time while making historical and scientific connection, I feel, our California history books fail to do. Let me digress, I am so tired of subjects taught in school be secular and disconnected! Here is a perfectly simple book making it happen. A great book, it might need some selling in a library, because somehow trees have gotten a boring rep.
Interestingly, I have had families of autistic children come in and borrow this book because they felt it would speak to their children. The illustrations bring in a multilayer dreamy perspective. The boy finds the book we are reading, and begins to read it, while we are reading it...trippie. Then he leaves the book on a park bench, and the cycle repeats, just like the cycle we learn about in the forest.
Watercolor
Lesson Plan: Redwood Lesson Plan
Booklist Top 10 Sci-Tech Books for Youth (2009)
Horn Book Fanfare (2009)
Booklist Editors' Choice (2009)
Booklist Top 10 Books on the Environment for Youth (2009)
ALA Notable Children's Books (2010)