Sam lives with his mum and grandpa in a busy city. It is noisy in the street but Sam and his grandpa have a special spot on the roof of their building where they can sit together and Sam can hear all about grandpa's life adventures. Sam especially loves to hear about the jungle with trees so tall they seem to touch the sky. From his travels grandpa has collected seeds. Sam decides to try a little gardening - all he needs is soil, water and sunlight and a lot of patience.
"Sam waited so long that he missed dinner and then dessert. He waited until the moon was high and his eyelids grew heavy and then ..."
There are no words on this page as you can see but something magical is happening and when Sam wakes up he finds himself lying under a huge tree. It has grown from the ground floor right up through the roof of their three storey building. So now on the roof grandpa and Sam have an even better spot to talk, and read and play card games with friends. The tree even provides delicious fruit which his mum makes into a strudel. Life at Number 43 is good UNTIL a letter arrives. Yes you knew there had to be a complication.
The letter looked "very official with curly writing and suspicious stamps." There have been complaints about leaves and wild creatures. Sam knows this letter needs a reply so he writes back explaining about leaves, and toucans and sloths and the friendly tiger not to mention the yummy fruit. The format of his letter is very special. But the authorities won't listen and a team of men arrive to cut down the beautiful tree. This is another wordless double page in the same form we saw previously at night with a silhouette of the tree again but this time we see it being progressively cut down.
Luckily for everyone, though, Sam is a problem solver. His grandpa has more seeds and so this time Sam gives a little packet of them to each of his neighbours and before long ...
"A yew grew at number two, a pine at number nine, a gum at number thirty-one."
The air is now filled with a different sort of noise - happy laughter, friendly roars and squawking birds.
The theme of urban renewal and greening a city is not original but this book is so charming especially in the way it demonstrates problem solving and community action all done using magical realism. It is such a fun twist to have the tree grow inside their building and it is so good to see the ways the family adapt to having a tree inside along with all those amazing jungle animals.
Jess McGeachin adds some delightful details in his illustrations. There is a tiny spider and her web on the title page signifying patience; the moon moving through the night sky to show the passing of time; the bent floor boards in the kitchen which accommodate the tree trunk; plants growing out of the chimney pots; the evil face on the postage stamp; the repeated building silhouette page (the growing of the tree and then the removal of the tree); and we can see at the end people are have added flower boxes and are sharing fresh produce and games. The final small night time image on the very last page made me smile – I think if I was the book designer, I would have been tempted to use this on the final end paper.
Jess McGeachin is the author of Frankie and the Fossil; Fly (I love this book); Kind; Deep; and his latest book - High.
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