The Tree That's Meant to Be by Yuval Zommer
Published by Doubleday Books for Young Readers on September 24, 2019
ISBN: 0593119673
Pages: 32
Genres: Animals, Realistic Fiction
Format: Picture Book Fiction
Goodreads

Though this book features a Christmas setting at one of its most pivotal moments, it could certainly be featured in a non-holiday collection year-round. It follows the story of a tree in the middle of a large forest who isn’t quite as perfect as all the trees around it. Season after season it is alone, including the Christmas season, where every tree around it is chosen as a family’s Christmas tree except for it. The tree is lonely and sad, but hope arrives (quite randomly) in the form of the forests’ animals, who somehow notice the tree’s dilemma and dress it up themselves for Christmas night. They continue to visit the tree as the years go on, in all seasons, sometimes curling up to sleep under it or nesting in its branches. So eventually, the little tree realizes that it is just as good as other trees; it is just meant for something else that it originally thought. It is a sweet story and the illustrations are truly lovely. The reason for the slightly lower rating is that the writing is a bit choppy, and again, it can’t seem to decide if it is a Christmas story or not, so it may be hard to circulate.

Reviewed by Nicole Clark, Goodall Memorial Library, Sanford