An Evergreen Is Ever Useful in Who Would Like a Christmas Tree?

Last weekend was Halloween. Our house is still decked out with pumpkins, black cats and bats. But I heard my first carol on a commercial last night, and the grocery store down the street is selling artificial trees. The Christmas season has unofficially begun. One of my favorite ways to ring in this part of the year is to peruse Christmas picture books. This season’s first for me is Who Would Like a Christmas Tree?: A Tree for All Seasons, written by Ellen Bryan Obed and illustrated by Anne Hunter, both of whom have first-hand experience with Christmas tree farms. This is a nice book to ease me into Christmas mode, since it focuses on a Christmassy object, but mostly in non-Christmassy situations.

Obed and Hunter follow the same basic format through the book. “Who would like a Christmas tree in January? is the opening inquiry. Turn the page, and you’ll see the response, once again in bold print: “We would like a Christmas tree in January.” Each month gets two pages in which the volunteers explain, in fairly lengthy paragraphs, why they would like a Christmas tree in that particular month. First it’s the black-capped chickadees, then the field mice, then the white-tailed deer and so on.

Each month offers insights into the habits of that particular animal (or, in one case, plant), and the accompanying illustrations show the changing of the seasons. Some descriptions make references to Christmas despite their distance from the actual holiday; for instance, the monarch butterflies, who would like a tree in August, indicate that they “feed on flowers and rest like delicate black and orange ornaments on the milkweeds and Christmas trees.” In October, the fox, first mentioned in association with the mice, gets a month to himself. Throughout the first 11 months of the year, we see the trees serving a variety of important purposes before finally coming to rest, on the last page, in the living room of a happy family.

Like Ann Purmell’s Christmas Tree Farm, this is a book whose aim is mostly educational. Children can learn about various types of wildlife and how evergreens fit into that picture. In a two-page segment in the back, children can read what tree farmers do during each month of the year to prepare for December. This section shows how much work is involved in operating a tree farm and mentions that the trees shown in the book are Balsam Firs and Fraser Firs. The writing is pretty dry; it’s mostly a collection of facts, with the familiar refrain and the fairly detailed pictures to help keep kids’ interest. My favorite illustration shows a trio of bright-eyed chickadees searching for seeds among fir branches.

For a child interested in the background of Christmas tree production, I recommend this and Christmas Tree Farm together. As a story, it’s only mildly engaging, but as a learning tool, Who Would Like a Christmas Tree? is useful.