Pick a Pine Tree

It’s time to choose your Christmas tree. Which one will you choose? Where do you go? Into the woods like our characters? You can almost smell the pine needles!

We join a family in this rich, cinnamon-scented narrative poem as they choose their tree, in ‘Pick a Pine Tree‘. ‘Pick a pine tree from the lot/ Slim and tall or short and squat…..’ The sequence is orderly, yet we almost spill over with excitement, like the characters we follow.

I love Patricia Toht’s carefully paced and structured rhyming text. The tradition of the event is mirrored in the her familiar tone. It’s caught in Jarvis’ faded, nostalgic, V &A Christmas card reminiscent illustrations, too.

‘Pick a Pine Tree‘ is a keeper. It will outlast the tree, to become a title that is quoted, shared and loved season after season.