WAKE UP, LITTLE PIN!

A mother pin oak calls on the help of forest creatures and even fungi in the soil to wake her leafy offspring after a long winter’s sleep.

At Mother Pin’s request, Red Squirrel asks Vole to loosen the ground by digging tunnels and enlists Porcupine to poop out a “nutritious breakfast” at Little Pin’s base. Mother Pin also asks the underground filaments of fungal mycelia to send some of her own nourishing sugars to the seedling’s roots. Anthropomorphic though all this might seem, the word choices reflect a concept that the author explains in her afterword—that forests are a responsive, interdependent “Wood Wide Web” in which trees do communicate and really may recognize and care for saplings. In her graceful watercolors, Ferrer sticks to naturalistically rendered flora and fauna in depicting a seasonal transition; woodland frogs leap into freshets of snowmelt, birds perch on budding branches, mushrooms sprout in profusion, and the sunlight takes on a green cast as days pass and Little Pin slowly leafs out to fullness. Taking a bit of forgivable poetic license, Garbutt concludes that “the two trees…felt happy to be part of their forest family.” Though this tale centers on an awakening, the peaceful, idyllic tone makes it an apt candidate for bedtime sharing, too.

An intimate and accurate picture of a natural cycle.