‘Soft rains and the smell of the ground’
I Am Connected
by Kung Jaadee (illustrated by Carla Joseph)
Victoria: Medicine Wheel Publishing, 2025
$22.99 / 9781778540639
When a Tree Falls: Nurse Logs and Their Incredible Forest Power
by Kristen Pendreigh (illustrated by Elke Boschinger)
San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2025
$28.99 / 9781797218670
Reviewed by Brett Josef Grubisic
*
As the Canadian population edges toward being 82% urban, parents might rightfully worry about children whose primary experiences of ‘nature’ arrive via screens—whether with the pixelated greenery of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild or the adventurous forest critters of Everdell. While no substitute for the lived experience of wandering the shoreline of a rugged seashore or breathing in the funky earthiness of a forest floor, two new titles are a treat to view as they open young minds and hearts to intriguing perspectives and useful information about the natural world.
* * *
In the opening panel of Vancouver-based Kung Jaadee’s picture book, I Am Connected, a child in a yellow slicker strides along a wind-swept beach. Turbulent clouds and ocean waters are framed by forests and totem poles and beached driftwood in hues that adult readers might connect with Emily Carr paintings.
On the following pages the child, a girl, describes her sense of belonging. She exclaims that she’s connected to herself, her ancestors, the earth, the water, the trees.
The speaker ages over the panels. She’s later connected to the ravens, a dormant volcano, to Haida Gwaii. And to her granddaughter. She describes experiences—“For as long as I can remember, I needed to climb trees”; “I need to be near the ocean every day so I can walk to the beach and wade in”—and they all illustrate her understanding that she is connected and that we are connected. Raven, water, mountain, child, ancestors, Mother Earth: all interconnected.
On the opposite page, Jaadee (Raven’s Feast) expands on the girl’s revelations (“When I go for walks, a raven flies overhead and calls out to me”; “I feel the thick moss beneath my feet and notice the beautiful big ferns growing beside the huckleberry bush”) and then poses a question that encourages young readers to consider their own sense of connection. “What are you thankful for?” the girl asks, “Who do you love?”
While Carla Joseph’s illustrations, textured as though painted on woven canvas, suggest the wonder and dwarfing magnitude of the natural world—towering forests, immense sea and sky—the girl is neither cowed by it nor lessened. And, certainly, she’s not afraid. She’s part of it, and comforted by the sense that though she may be a particle in a cosmos, she’s as integral and necessary in that cosmos as a raven, a hemlock, the sea, and the land itself.
* * *
For kids who are a bit older, Kristen Pendreigh’s When a Tree Falls is appealing, poetically-inflected lesson in forest ecology whose usefulness is matched by pleasing design.
On the opening page, filled with lush greens and vertical browns, and one child in the foreground staring up, up, up at a colossal tree, the poetry begins: “A tall tree suns and sways./She is a place to grow,/to rest,/to shelter.”
Over the next two pages illustrator Elke Boschinger sketches eagles, squirrels, and an owl on tree branches to complement Pendreigh’s words: “A lookout,/an aerie,/a roost, /a roof.”
As Tree continues, Vancouver writer Pendreigh portrays how the lookout/aerie/roost/roof plays an immensely useful role within a complex community of interrelations.
The tree also grows old. It weakens, dies, and falls.
And yet: “Her new life begins as Nurse Log.”
As time passes, Nurse Log—“a lap,/a bed,/a cradle”—plays another, equally vital role: “She is a place to grow, to rest, to shelter.” She holds moisture and shares it during dry spells. A fallen log is an ecosystem, a vital player in natural cycles.
And as Nurse Log gradually crumbles and “returns to earth,” another tree stands and suns and sways as she did years and years before.
For the curious (or adult readers who might want to bit more information to answer the probable questions of the book’s young audience), Pendreigh concludes with four pages of information about the role of nurse logs in any healthy forest.
*
My Two-Faced Luck, the fifth novel by Salt Spring Islander Brett Josef Grubisic, published in 2021 with Now or Never Publishing, is reviewed here by Geoffrey Morrison. A previous novel, Oldness; or, the Last-Ditch Efforts of Marcus O (2018), was reviewed by Dustin Cole. [Editorial note: A BCR editor, Brett has reviewed books by Sam Wiebe, Maureen Young, Daniel Anctil, Adam Welch, Andrea Bennett, Patrick Grace, Cole Nowicki, Tania De Rozario, John Metcalf (ed.), Brandon Reid, Beatrice Mosionier, Hazel Jane Plante, Sam Wiebe, Joseph Kakwinokanasum, Chelene Knight, Lyndsie Bourgon, Gurjinder Basran, and Don LePan for BCR.]
*
The British Columbia Review
Interim Editors, 2023-26: Trevor Marc Hughes (non-fiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction and poetry)
Publisher: Richard Mackie
Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an online book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.
“Only connect.” – E.M. Forster