Little Tree by e.e. cummings, illustrated by Deborah Kogan Ray

This reissue has been out of print for sixteen years.  It is a joy to see it returning in time for this year’s Christmas.  A story of two children finding a tiny tree and taking it home will remind all readers what the holidays are truly about.  The care of the children is clear in both the poem and the illustrations.  They stand the tree, decorate it with ornaments from a shelf high in the closet where the decorations have been waiting to be on display again.  The tree stands splendid in the window, facing the street below, and the children sing around it.

The soft illustrations by Ray have a delicacy about them that is perfect for the poem which dances and skims.  Done in colored pencil, the colors are rich but also gentle and quiet.  The poem remains resolutely a poem, never becoming words on a picture book page, making this book even more unique and special.  

Fans of cummings will find his poem lifted by the illustrations rather than obscured in this quiet holiday book.  Appropriate for ages 4-8.

Reviewed from copy received from Dragonfly Books.