At the edge of the woods, there is a great tree. Peep through the branches and you might just see some little people who stand as tall as your thumb and have heads the size of hazelnuts.
Sylvia prefers to be alone rather than play noisy games with the other Tree Keepers. But one day, she finds a baby bird in her favourite hiding place. As Sylvia and the bird become friends, can she learn that sometimes, things are better when you have someone to share them with?
The Tree Keepers: Flock, is a beautiful debut picture book by Gemma Koomen. The premise of the book revolves around a civilisation called the Tree Keepers, a group of tiny people (whom I imagine are almost invisible to humans) who live in the trees, harvesting, cleaning and generally making the tree appear as appealing as possible. Think the borrowers, but living in trees. The idea of these tiny humans doing the work of nature is one which is easily imagined and the illustrations really help to add life to the words, as you see the Tree Keepers going about their daily tasks.
The book focuses on one of the Tree Keepers names Sylvia - a young, introverted girl who prefers her own company to that of others. However, when Sylvia befriends a baby starling she begins to see what great possibilities friendship can bring and that sometimes a friendly face is comforting.
This would be a brilliant book to use in art lessons and I can imagine myself using it to focus on art using nature, collecting leaves and twigs to create a small world or recreate a scene from the book. I know that this would also prompt a lot of discussion around where else mini civilisations might be living and really promote imaginative writing within a classroom.
Flock is filled with the kind of imagination and fantasy that I love to create in my classroom and I know this will be a beautiful addition to my school bookshelf.
A magnified view of life in the trees and the importance of friendship.
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