By Dr. Seuss
Dr. Seuss's story of the Once-ler, who chopped down a whole forest of Truffula trees to get rich, and the Lorax, the little creature who spoke for the trees while there were still trees left to speak for.
In a ruined, empty place, a boy pays the mysterious Once-ler to tell how it all got wrecked. Long ago, the Once-ler explains, this land was full of bright Truffula trees and happy animals, until he arrived, chopped one down, and used its tuft to knit a Thneed. Business boomed. He built factories and cut faster and faster, while a grumpy little orange creature called the Lorax kept popping up to warn him: the air is filthy, the pond is gunked, the animals are hungry and have to leave. The Once-ler ignores him until the very last tree falls and everything is gone, the Lorax included. Then he hands the boy the last Truffula seed, and tells him it's up to him.
It's the rare picture book that says something true and a little sad without ever losing the bounce that makes Seuss so easy to read aloud. For a nature-loving child it puts words to a feeling they may already have, that it matters how we treat the world. The rhyme carries them through the bleak middle, and the ending hands them, quite literally, a reason to hope and something to do.