Title: The Amida Tree

Author/Illustrator: Bonnie Ferrante

Publisher/Year: Single Drop Publishing/2015

First Line: A little girl loved a wild apple tree.

The Amida Tree is a truly lovely story that touched my heart. It’s about a young girl and her relationship with a wild apple tree. And it is through this relationship that the girl learns to respect and care for nature, so much so that she goes off to university to learn more about the environment, and eventually even writes a book in order to teach children about the importance of wild fruit trees.

We watch the young girl grow and change and become an old woman and we know the tree is getting older too, and eventually it falls. And yet, though we are sad for the tree and for the old woman, we are left with a feeling of hope. New wild apple trees have sprung up and we know, thanks to the efforts of a girl who loved a tree, that the circle of life goes on. 

When I was a girl, we had a wild apple tree in our backyard. This story brought back a lot of fond memories for me, of climbing the tree with siblings and cousins, of the wildlife that lived in it, and of my grandmother, who collected the apples and made the best apple sauce from them. The Amida Tree is worth a look for anyone interested in nature, or simply for the sweet, colorful, and nicely rendered illustrations.