Big Tree – Mary & Conrad Buff, 1946

I’ve managed to track down most of the children’s books I loved but for which I didn’t have author/title information, many with the help of the wonderful Loganberry Books’ Stump the Bookseller. But there is one I still can’t find. From the description, Big Tree seemed like a good match, but unless I conflated several books, this isn’t it. The big tree of the title is a giant sequoia named Wawona. He sprouts 2,500 years before the present time and we see him grow, observe the animals and birds around him, survive fire and lightning, and eventually survive even man, as a national park is made around him just in time. Unfortunately the style hasn’t aged well at all. The chipmunks are busy, the rabbits are timid, the eagles are cruel; everything has an adjective and no cliche is spared. The tree’s personality isn’t well-defined and there are some strange contradictions (“It seemed to Wanona that summer had not really come unless the two golden eagles perched in his crest… In many ways he preferred that the eagles did not nest in the old eyrie…” [two consecutive sentences])

Maybe I read this as a child, but I’m not sure. I think I would have remembered the name Wawona and the black and white illustrations. My favorite bit in this book is the trade rat who takes a prospector’s glasses and leaves him a dirty stick–that also would have stuck in my head, and I wouldn’t have been so surprised and delighted to discover trade/pack rats and their role in archeology when we lived in Tucson.

I also recently checked out The Tree in the Trail by Holling Clancy Holling (better known for Paddle-to-the-Sea) because I remember the tree being in the middle of a road. That was a much more colorful and entertaining book than Big Tree, and the illustrations are in color, but the tree is a cottonwood and it’s definitely not “the” book. Could I have read the two and mixed them up in my memory? Initially I thought so, but a few more details have crystallized. I’m quite sure the book I remember featured a “drive-through tree,” and interestingly enough the most famous of them was–Wawona! So maybe there was a book subsequent to Big Tree that also narrated Wawona’s life, didn’t use that name, and had color illustrations. Or maybe I mixed up three books! It niggles at me, and I’ll keep searching. As the online universe gets bigger, the chances of success get greater if there really is a book out there. My recollection of The Little House in the Fairy Wood was spot-on, so I’m betting on little Hilary’s memory.