Houghton Mifflin The Great Kapok Tree: A Tale of The Amazon Rain Forest

Year 4 found reading this book a pleasure. The story is full of descriptive language which persuaded us to keep reading. The book gives the animals an opportunity to share how they feel about chopping down the Kapok Tree. The book made us think about deforestation and encourages us to think about the products we use and if we are wasting them. The Great Kapok Tree is full of exotic illustrations which makes the rainforest come to life. We would recommend this book to 8 and 9 year old because some of the language used is difficult to understand.

Lovely book, great message & illustrations. You can read it calmly & softly as the animals one by one whisper in the man's ear telling him why he shouldn't cut down the tree using a different voice for each creature. Nice book to lull a child to sleep & had quite a profound effect on my 8 yr old with regard to looking after our planet for future generations (they had read it at school) definitely a 'keeper' to be passed down. The Learning Tree is a book I had years ago as a child explaining how we should look after our planet, not drop litter etc (which you probably can still find) & was impacting on both my children too.

My daughter who is 9 absolutely loved this book. A real eye opener into the reality of capitalism and materialism. Shame us adults don't change. The world would be such a peaceful place without arrogance and greed of narracistic people. Money doesn't make any of us a better or good person. I'm glad my children believe in themselves enough to know most of the world is filed with selfish people and they choose to be good kind peoe. They know at such a young age who they are. They did cry when they told me aboyt how they felt after reading the book.,

This is a beautiful book about a kapok tree in the Amazon and just how many animals it provides a habitat for. It would be great to use when studying South America but also has a wealth of vocabulary (especially alternatives for the word "said") and the subjunctive form - so could be a wonderful asset for grammar and English lessons in the classroom too.

My 9 year old grandson is studying the rainforest at the moment and this has brought it to life for him. Had to explain about the American spellings but other than that it’s a lovely book with stunning artwork