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In Just Like Me Climbing a Tree: Exploring Tress Around the World, award-winning author/illustrator Durga Yael Bernhard travels around the globe visiting 12 beautiful and favorite trees.

Exploration and inquiry are the keys to unlocking the secrets and treasures of the trees. Each page asks a question:

What if we swung from a tree branch as monkeys do ? What type of tree would we be swinging form?

What type of tree would we choose if we were a bat and needed to hang upside down?

Each question takes us to a new tree in a new land.

Just Like Me Climbing a Tree is perfect for ages 5 and above. It is beautifully illustrated with full color drawings, bringing this tree adventure to life. Each double page spread hosts the lyrical poetry of  tree, a question, and the classification of the tree and where it is found on our planet.

In the back of the book there is an entire section called “About the Trees in this Book” which is devoted to describing and classifying each tree in great detail.

This hands on multicultural read is sure to delight you and your family time and again. Just Like Me Climbing a Tree brought to mind all of the trees we as a family have called “friend” throughout the years. In our garden we have a huge Rose Cypress tree that has seen many hours of play underneath its branches. If you ask my children, they will tell you that it is a magical tree where fairies live.

In the country of Lebanon where my in-laws live, there is a gigantic banyan tree. It is a favorite friend where we have picnic lunches and the kids climb for hours. This old and ancient tree is a place of pilgrimage for all of us. We can not set foot in Beirut more than 24 hours without going to see what’s happening with our friend known as “the tree.”

Something To Do

How Old Is A Tree ?

Our beautiful old monkey tale pine tree had to be cut down a couple of weeks ago due to it being severely damaged by an ice storm. After cutting it down, we are left with the stump but it’s the stump which will tell us a lot about the life of this beautiful magnificent tree.

Tree Rings

As a tree grows, it produces new layers of wood around the trunk, just under the bark. If a tree is cut down, the layers are visible in a cross-section. The layers appear as a set of concentric circles known as tree rings.

In general, one layer of wood grows each year. Each layer consists of two colors of wood: light-colored “earlywood” that grows in the spring and summer plus darker, denser “latewood” from the fall and winter.

Tree rings—also known as annual growth rings—vary in size each year depending upon the environmental conditions that the tree experiences. For most locations, tree rings will be wider during years of abundant rainfall and narrower during times of drought.

By counting back from the year a living tree was cut, it is possible to determine how old the tree is. Find a tree stump and start counting the tree rings from the outside and move to the center of the tree trunk.

Climate Records

Some species of trees can live for thousands of years. Because the widths of a tree’s rings reflect yearly precipitation patterns, the rings can be analyzed to reconstruct a record of past climate conditions.

Fires

Tree rings also record the occurrence of forest fires. New layers of wood added around the exterior of tree trunks are vulnerable to damage by fire. If a fire damages a tree’s bark and exterior, but does not kill the tree, a new layer of wood can grow over the scarred layer the next year, preserving the scar as a record of the fire.

Spend some time outside near a tree stump and see what history it’s telling you. How old is it ? Was there years of excessive rainfall ? Was there years of drought ? Were there any forest fires ?

More Things To Do…….

Sing the Just Like Me Song

There’s a song to go along with this wonderful book. Not only will you be climbing trees but you’ll be singing while you do. Story Laurie aka Laurie McIntosh has written the Just Like Me Song. It’s really fun and wonderful. Have a look at the book as you sing along !!! 

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