By Robert Barry
One grand Christmas tree is a little too tall, so the trimmed-off top gets passed down and down until a whole chain of creatures has a tree of its own — a gentle old rhyming classic.
Mr. Willowby's splendid Christmas tree arrives, and it's too tall — the tip bends against the ceiling. So the top is snipped off and given to the upstairs maid, who finds her tree a touch too tall and passes the trimmed piece to the gardener, and on it goes: down to a bear, a fox, a rabbit, and finally the tiniest mouse in the wall, each one keeping a Christmas tree cut from the very same pine. By the end, everyone from the big house to the smallest burrow has a bit of the same tree glowing for the holiday.
This one has been loved since the 1960s, and it holds up because the idea underneath it is so satisfying to a child: one tree, shared all the way down to a mouse, so nobody is left out. The cumulative rhythm is easy to follow and fun to anticipate, and Robert Barry's warm little illustrations of each animal's home reward slow looking. It's a calm, uncrowded read with no rush or worry in it, the kind of gentle keepsake that feels handed down even the first time you read it.