Walking Trees

Riffing on a Dutch art project in which participants created a “walking forest,” per a creator’s note, Gay crafts a likable tale of a city kid who takes a potted tree for a walk—and inspires others to follow suit. After a city-dwelling child named Lily receives a deciduous tree for her birthday, the pale-skinned girl seeks to show the arboreal being, dubbed “George,” that “the world was wider than her balcony.” Amid unusual heat, George—pulled along in a wheeled crate—offers a refuge for adults and kids alike, and others soon acquire their own shade-producing plants, resulting in a small mobile forest. Mixed-media illustrations have an airy quality as they depict both the color that trees bring to the city and the community of varying skin tones luxuriating in trees’ cooling shade. In a bright final fold-out, the walking forest’s transformative effect becomes evident. Beneath the leaves, “babies crawled, dogs slept and musicians played their liveliest tunes.” It’s an elysian vision grounded in real-world practicality. Ages 3–6. (Mar.)