The Halloween Tree

by Susan Montanari, Teresa Martínez (Illustrator)

Overview

A charming, funny, and heartwarming kids Halloween picture book that will help to start a new seasonal tradition. Perfect for kids 3-5 or any young child in your life that wants to celebrate the spookiest season of the year.

Everyone knows most young saplings dream of becoming Christmas trees. But one grumpy, old tree who doesn't like lights, decorations, or people is determined to be different. Get ready to meet the Halloween Tree!

The Halloween Tree is not your average holiday book and is sure to warm the hearts of kids and adults-alike as a gnarly tree finds his place in the world. This festive tale will have all youngsters shouting "Trick or tree!" with glee and decorating their own Halloween trees by the final page. The perfect Halloween gift for babies and kids alike!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781492673354
Publisher:	Sourcebooks
Publication date:	08/06/2019
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	279,582
Product dimensions:	8.25(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.33(d)
Lexile:	NC660L (what's this?)
Age Range:	3 - 6 Years

About the Author

Susan McElroy Montanari spent the majority of her life on the beach and tidal creeks surrounding Savannah, GA. Susan is the author of numerous books for children. Susan's hobbies include gardening, scuba diving, natural science, legend tripping, and cryptozoology. She has three daughters and one son-in-law. After several productive years in Norwalk, CT, she returned home to Savannah, GA, where she resides with her husband Dan, and a cat named Tybee. www.susanmontanari.com

During her early childhood, Teresa lived in a small town north of Mexico, playing in the river, walking with the cows, and feeding the neighbor’s pigs. When her parents decided to move to the city (Monterrey) to give Teresa and her brothers a better education, she spent these later years missing that quiet life. Teresa was a very shy girl at school, and drawing helped her connect with other kids. There was no career for Illustration in Mexico in those days, so Teresa decided to study Graphic Design and spent many afternoons reading books on art in the university’s library. She also took many painting courses and even went to Italy for a short course at the Leonardo Da Vinci School (Florence). Eventually, she started working as a children’s book illustrator and been doing that ever since. Now Teresa lives in Puerto Vallarta, drawing for kids (as she did in her school). Every other day, she gets to see the cows outside her house. And that makes her happy

Editorial Reviews

09/02/2019

On a Christmas tree farm, a curmudgeonly needleless sapling grumbles that it dreads being uprooted: “I don’t like lights, I don’t like decorations, and I don’t like people.” After a housing development replaces the farm, the gnarled tree ends up on a family’s lawn, where neighborhood kids turn its knotty branches into a pirate ship, a hideout, a spaceship, and a dragon. Martinez fills this 8×8 with vivid digital illustrations suggestive of animated cartoons, cleverly tweaking the tree’s facial expressions to morph from grumpy (amid Christmas tree buyers) to tolerant (serving as the kids’ playground) to forlorn (when winter keeps the children indoors) to chagrin (when the parents threaten to cut it down) to satisfied—if somewhat skeptical—when the youngsters decorate it for Halloween and exclaim, “Trick or tree!” A slight yet diverting holiday offering. Ages 3–7. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

"Just the thing for anyone with a Grinch-y tree of their own in the yard. " — Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

2019-07-14
A grouchy sapling on a Christmas tree farm finds that there are better things than lights and decorations for its branches.

A Grinch among the other trees on the farm is determined never to become a sappy Christmas tree—and never to leave its spot. Its determination makes it so: It grows gnarled and twisted and needle-less. As time passes, the farm is swallowed by the suburbs. The neighborhood kids dare one another to climb the scary, grumpy-looking tree, and soon, they are using its branches for their imaginative play, the tree serving as a pirate ship, a fort, a spaceship, and a dragon. But in winter, the tree stands alone and feels bereft and lonely for the first time ever, and it can't look away from the decorated tree inside the house next to its lot. When some parents threaten to cut the "horrible" tree down, the tree thinks, "Not now that my limbs are full of happy children," showing how far it has come. Happily for the tree, the children won't give up so easily, and though the tree never wished to become a Christmas tree, it's perfectly content being a "trick or tree." Martinez's digital illustrations play up the humorous dichotomy between the happy, aspiring Christmas trees (and their shoppers) and the grumpy tree, and the diverse humans are satisfyingly expressive.

Just the thing for anyone with a Grinch-y tree of their own in the yard. (Picture book. 4-8)

Kirkus Reviews

Music and sound effects heighten the atmosphere of each phase of a grouchy tree’s life in this Halloween holiday audiobook. Narrator Nick Podehl’s voice is friendly and comforting while delightfully playing up the grouch factor of the curmudgeonly tree on a tree farm who does not want to be a sappy Christmas tree. After the farm is incorporated into a housing development, the gnarled, twisted tree ends up on a family’s lawn, where neighborhood kids pretend it’s a pirate ship, a spaceship, and a dragon, each depicted with sound effects. Podehl also furnishes different voices for cheerful human and tree companions that provide humorous contrast to the grumpy tree. Upbeat music adds to the satisfaction of the tree’s happy ending as a festive Halloween tree. S.C. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

OCTOBER 2019 - AudioFile