by Paul Fleischmanpictures by Barry Root
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I thought this was a beautiful story, but it went a bit over my kids' heads. The author drew a parallel between a boy, Jack, and the tree his parents planted when he was born. After he left home his parents were able to know how Jack was, based on the tree's appearance (sounds weird, but I promise it's better than I'm making it sound!) My kids did enjoy it when I read it to them, even though they did give me a few puzzled looks and said, "what?" more than once! I guess some books were intended more for the pleasure of the parents reading them...and there's nothing wrong with that!
