Richie’s Picks: JUST ONE OAK: WHAT A SINGLE TREE CAN BE
Richie Partington
Richie’s Picks: JUST ONE OAK: WHAT A SINGLE TREE CAN BE by Maria Gianferrari and Diana Sudyka, ill., Simon & Schuster/ Beach Lane, April 2026, 48p., ISBN: 978-1-6659-6104-2
The Oak
Live thy Life,
Young and old,
Like yon oak,
Bright in spring,
Living gold;
Summer-rich
Then; and then
Autumn-changed
Soberer-hued
Gold again.
All his leaves
Fall'n at length,
Look, he stands,
Trunk and bough
Naked strength.
– Alfred Lord Tennyson (1889)
The last time I saw it, the live oak near the well was an adolescent, maybe eight or nine feet tall. I’ve just been back to my former long-time residence in Sebastopol, now my rental property, for the first time in 14 years. That live oak is currently in the neighborhood of twenty-five or thirty-feet tall with broad boughs. I pruned the lowest seven feet, making it a stellar hang out place for hot days. Elsewhere on the property, other, younger oaks have popped up and are in various stages of growth.
I returned home to the city to encounter this wonderful oversized picture book for older readers about the multiplicity of roles that a single oak tree can play in the environment.
“Just one oak…
clings to its crown
of leaves
the winter through.
Leaves swirl off in spring,
right when they’re needed most
Marcescence (mahr-CESS-ense), when a tree’s leaves brown and wither in autumn but still remain on the tree, may be a tree’s defense against browsers like deer. Scientists think the bitter brown leaves may prevent animals from eating the tree’s leaf buds in spring. With the help of decomposers, freshly fallen leaves add nutrition to the soil.”
That’s one of eighteen huge, beautiful spreads of oaks, illustrated with gouache watercolors, accompanied by fascinating nature facts, and containing scores of labeled critters, from little bugs to big bears, who all benefit from the mighty oak.
“Just one oak…
began as a taproot diving down;
lateral roots branch,
spreading sideways near the soil’s surface–
farther than the canopy is wide.
From the taproot, lateral roots branch and extend horizontally in shallow soil, up to three times beyond the oak’s canopy, giving it support. Then they form a finer cluster of roots so that the oak can soak up moisture and nutrients from the soil.
This is great stuff. JUST ONE OAK is a stellar read that will make a great complement to a walk in the woods or a climb up a tree.
Richie Partington, MLIS
Richie's Picks http://richiespicks.pbworks.com