Pure picture-book magic. A polar bear rides a whale to a tree rising out of the water. At the top of the tree is a tree house. He's joined by a brown bear in a boat. The bears find that the tree house is the perfect place to read. When the water recedes, they are joined by flamingos, panda bears, and other animals that come by land and air. The tree house is a place of wonder, where a brown bear catches snowflakes in a butterfly net.

Marije Tolman studied illustration and graphic design at the Royal Academy for Visual Arts in the Hague and at the Edinburgh Class of Art in Scotland. She works full-time as a children's book illustrator in the Netherlands. Her father, Ronald Tolman, is a sculptor, painter, and graphic artist.

Categories

• Animals - General

Product Details

ISBN: 9781590788066
ISBN-10: 1590788060
Publisher: Lemniscaat USA
Publication Date: May 1st, 2010
Pages: 32
Language: English

Recommended Reading Level

Minimum Age: 3
Maximum Age: 6
Minimum Grade Level: P
Maximum Grade Level: 1

Imbued with quiet effervescence, this wordless picture book imagines a child-sized paradise in which dreamy scenes unfold one after another. . . It's Noah's Ark undone, with no traumatic flood, no tidy matched pairs, and no need for olive branches. Readers of all ages will want to return to this treasure box of images again and again." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"The most captivating aspect of this book is that there are no words, which opens the door for imagination and all kinds of wonderful interaction between parents and children as they create a story together."--ForeWord
Winner of the Ragazzi Prize for Fiction at the Bologna International Children's Book Fair

An Outstanding International Book of the Year--United States Board on Books for Young People (USBBY)

The Bologna Ragazzi Award Jury stated the following about The Tree House:

The Tree House is a wise, clear, even poetic, example of how an established topos of the collective imagination may be revisited with a fresh eye to reveal a continued relevance to modern times. Marije Tolman and Ronald Tolman return to the "house in the trees". Their house, however, is rich with subtle cultural references ranging from symbolist painting to the most refined 20th century graphic art.

The book's message is not declaimed, but is conveyed quietly. It pleads for an enlightened ecological stance in which an intense awareness that we are part of nature does not forego our need for elegance and intellectual enquiry.

"Children will gaze in wonder at this tree house and understand the rhino's longing (and obvious impatience) to be up in its branches. This oversize picture book celebrates acceptance of others and the splendor of nature." --School Library Journal"Children will appreciate this large-scale wordless book's whimsicality and its commanding art, especially the tree house's out-of-focus look as it's battered by a rhino." --The Horn Book