This book reminded me of Manjhi Moves a Mountain because here we have another book about patience, perseverance and holding fast to dreams. The young girl in this book discovers from her grandfather that once, long ago, the bare mountains near her home were covered with a beautiful green forest. Over time all of the trees have been cut down.
This young girl is a problem solver. She is determined to fill the mountain with trees once again. So she takes a few seeds from her fruit and plants them at the top of the mountain. Sadly they do not grow into an instant forest. Her grandfather explains it will take a long time for trees to grow and of course any plants up on the dry mountain will need water.
This is just a small obstacle for our young hero. She talks to people in her town and gathers a bigger collection of seeds.
"Every day, she planted more seeds and watered them well. And soon the seeds began to sprout!"
The top of the mountain now has a small patch of green. But then disaster strikes. A huge storm destroys every tree - the tiny saplings were just too fragile. If you are sharing this book with a group of older children you could stop at this point and talk about what the children in your class or library might do if this happened to them. Then keep reading and marvel at the perseverance and patience and wonderful work ethic of this girl. Everyone is sure to cheer when you see how her community responds too.
The Girl who Planted Trees is a new book from the wonderful publisher Nosy Crow (you can see inside this book) and it is available in paperback. Caryl Hart has written lots of books and I am also very keen to see another book illustrated by Anastasia Surorova:
There are lots of books you could read alongside The Girl who Planted Trees:
You should also look for one or two of these biographies:
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