Take a Walk with the Wind

Toddler-Gr 3–It’s difficult to imagine any child, of any age, who will not be charmed by the protagonist in this story from an ancient Chinese text, Memories of Xiang Zhou, by Guo Zhong Chan. “If an ancient mountain forest is left alone and not damaged or disturbed for a period of at least several hundred years, it will spontaneously produce a kind of miniature being known as the Mu Ke, or the Treelings.” As the story opens, the ungendered, light-skinned Treeling is asleep, then swept up by the antics of the ferocious wind as it. As it roars through the landscape, disrupting inhabitants large and small, the grouchy, then worried Treeling’s mantra becomes an apologetic “It wasn’t me.” The wind, like the main character in Drew Beckmeyer’s I Am a Tornado, weakens, and the Treeling is delivered back to bed. Resembling pencil drawings that have been puddled with a muted palette of watercolors, the illustrations are child-pleasers; readers, like Treelings, often feel pulled by events or beings into moments beyond their control. The story is underwhelming, more of a shaggy dog tale than the wonderful premise set up by the note that opens it. It’s critical to include such picture books in collections, though, despite the wobble in the execution.