The snake says, 'Generations of my ancestors have lived in this tree.' The bee says, 'Hey, I pollinate things?' The monkeys say, 'If you chop down this tree, you're going to chop down another one,' an unintentional lesson in the slippery slope fallacy.

The animals all speak English except for the word 'Senhor,' the Portuguese word for 'Mister', so it's a wonder the presumably Brazilian man understands them at all. The pictures are beautiful, the words are true, and the message is true, and it's a good message, but who is this book written for? The people who are cutting down trees in the rain forest are not going to read a children's book printed in English in the United States. While he's asleep, various animals come and lecture the crap out of this guy about how chopping down trees in the rain forest is bad. Taken from the Hardcover (library binding).Two men go into a forest, one of them points at this kapok tree, and leaves, and the other one takes an axe and starts cutting it down, then gets tired and goes to sleep. Spectacular endpapers include a map of the world's tropical rain forests and the amazing array of Amazon wildlife.- Luann Toth, School Library Journal Although the talking animals somewhat diminish the power of the message and undermine its seriousness, The Great Kapok Tree gives young readers a glimpse of and a feeling for an environment vastly different from their own. The flora and fauna of the lush, steamy Brazilian rain forest seem to grow before readers' eyes, surrounding the text and the peaceful young man as he sleeps. She totally engages readers' attention and senses through vivid detail, dramatic perspective, and lifelike accuracy. Cherry's rich colored-pencil and watercolor drawings fairly buzz with life. This thinly veiled nature and conservation lesson succeeds in giving a simplified picture of the rain forest-from its canopy to its dense understory-and the interdependence of all the plant and animal life that exists within this fragile, shrinking ecosystem. Lastly, a child of the Yanomamo tribe begs him to ``please look upon us all with new eyes.'' He awakens to the menagerie assembled and seems to see them for the first time. As he dozes, the animal residents of the enormous tree come to him, explain the tree's vital importance to their existence, and gently implore him to reconsider his labors. K-Gr 3- Exhausted from heat and exertion, a lone man rests at the base of a Kapok tree that he is intent on felling.

The great kapok tree amazon