I have five older siblings. Yet it wasn’t until I came along that my parents had to create specific rules around tree climbing and how high was too high. A line of trees stood along the border of our modest back yard. I loved to scramble up in their branches and gaze out on my surroundings. My love of trees never waned, though I haven’t climbed one lately. Here’s a book list for my fellow enthusiasts.
“The Overstory” by Richard Powers won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. In this novel, several characters from disparate backgrounds are drawn together through their relationships with trees. Powers skillfully weaves in scientific information without sacrificing story to do so. While trees receive star billing, a major theme of the book is the interconnectedness of all beings. “Thick, clotted, craggy, but solid on the earth, and covered in other living things. Three hundred years growing, three hundred years holding, three hundred years dying. Oak.” That’s your prize-winning wordcraft right there.
Peter Wohlleben takes readers on a deep dive with his nonfiction book, 
“The Hidden Life of Trees.” There’s so much more going on than we see. Trees communicate with each other through chemical and electrical signals, warn each other of predators and send nutrition to their young.
In our hectic world, more people are realizing the benefits of slowing down and hanging out with trees. “Shinrin-yoku, the Japanese Art of Forest Bathing” by Yoshifumi Miyazaki discusses how “the practice of walking slowly through the woods, in no hurry” can lead to stress reduction, blood pressure regulation and overall improvements in physical and mental health. The country of Japan has established forest therapy trails for this purpose.
If anyone ever set tree climbing limits on James Aldred in his childhood, he’s blown through
them as an adult. “The Man Who Climbs Trees” is his memoir of seeing the world as few have, from the tops of forest canopies. In his work filming and photographing wildlife for National Geographic and the BBC, he’s traveled the globe, getting his best shots from high in the air and learning a lot about how ecosystems function along the way.
Ali Shaw’s novel, “The Trees,” is a work of post-apocalyptic fiction. That’s if the story is viewed from a human perspective. It could also be seen as a tale of restoration from the point of view of trees, which are fighting back in a bid for survival.
