"Sometimes I feel like a birch,
smooth and fresh, anew.
My curling bark peels gently away
with bright and brimming hope."
This is a companion book to the first two in the series: Sometimes I Feel Like a Fox (2017, Groundwood), a book about totem animals, and Sometimes I Feel Like a River (2023, Groundwood), a book that celebrates our relationship to nature. This third book of poetry explores the beauty to be found in trees and the seasons of nature. It begins early in the spring and extends through the beauty of winter.
Twelve different trees are mentioned in a child's four-line poem to describes one attribute. It might be the flowing sap of the maple in early spring, the 'soothing scent' of the cedar as it is carried on a summer wind, or the bark of an ash that feeds small animals. There is teaching in the poetry, as readers have a chance to learn a little about the trees that are a part of their environment.
Ms. Daniel's love of nature and the trees that are part of it is evident in the words she writes. Jackie Traverse's full spreads, rendered in bold, textured acrylics and gouache, place the tree front and center on natural backdrops sure to appeal to readers. The final two pages revisit each of the trees in thumbnail sketches, describing the attribute evoked by each for the author. She finishes with a question for her audience.
"Maybe you have favorite trees that you like to visit.
What do you see in the trees around you?"
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