By Angela Elwell Hunt
Three trees on a hilltop each dream of what they'll grow up to be. Each dream looks ruined when they're cut down, then comes true through the life of Jesus — a folktale retold as the Christian Easter story, ending gently at the cross.
Three little trees grow on a hill, and each one has a dream. The first wants to hold treasure. The second wants to be a mighty ship that carries kings. The third just wants to grow so tall that people will look up and think of God. Then the woodcutters come, and every dream seems to fall apart. The first tree is made into a plain feed box for a stable. The second becomes a small fishing boat. The third is cut into rough beams and left. But a baby is laid in that feed box. A teacher calms a storm from that boat. And the third tree is built into the cross where Jesus dies. Every dream comes true, bigger than the trees could have pictured.
Of the faith books here, this is the one for an older child, and the one most likely to catch in your throat. It never shows the crucifixion straight on. Instead it comes at the whole story sideways, through three trees whose broken dreams turn out to be exactly what God had in mind, so a five- to nine-year-old feels what Easter means through a folktale before they can put a name to it. Tim Jonke's paintings glow, and the moment a child links the third tree to the cross is genuinely stirring. It reads beautifully aloud, and families tend to keep it.