Mary Margaret's Tree

Ted McGee is an associate professor of English at St. Jerome’s
College, University of Waterloo.

With the planting of a small tree, Mary Margaret begins a fantastic
adventure. The why and how of her marvelous experience remains a
mystery: as the tree, starts to grow, she starts to shrink. Tiny enough
to recline in the blossom of a flower, Mary Margaret climbs up to the
top of the towering tree where—for a day, for a year (until her mother
calls her for her dinner at least)—she enjoys the rich, colorful
variety of her arboreal habitat with its chattering insects, busy birds,
fruits of all sorts, moths flying about the moon, hibernating mammals,
and green, green foliage.

Blair Dawson moves into and through fantasy with ease. The “poetic”
distribution of the text on the page helps in this regard, but more
important are the illustrations. Blending naturalism with an artificial
formality, they include some spectacular close-ups, such as the robin
feeding its chicks or Mary Margaret clinging to autumn leaves on a windy
day, and some significant long shots, such as the scene of pastoral
harmony when Mary Margaret hibernates with a cougar, a fox, a rabbit, a
bear, a deer, and a raccoon. This is a picture book that needs no words;
the pictures tell the story, both of nature’s wonders and of Mary
Margaret’s lively engagement with them. Highly recommended.