1 The Great Kapok Tree: A Tale of the Amazon Rain Forest

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Spaghetti Book Club - Book Reviews by Kids for Kids

The Great Kapok Tree: A Tale of the Amazon Rain Forest

Written by Lynne Cherry


Reviewed by Jessica T. (age 9)


The Great Kapok Tree: A Tale of the Amazon Rain Forest

Imagine if you were an animal and your home was going to be chopped down. This story is about a man who is going to chop down a Kapok tree in the rainforest. There are twelve animals that live in the Great Kapok. They are a snake, bee, monkey, toucan, frogs, jaguar, porcupines, anteater, and a child. It got so hot one day that the man fell to sleep. So one by one the animals said in the man?s ear why they should not chop the tree down. The animals don?t want the man to chop down the tree because that is their home and they all have a unique reason why. One of the porcupine?s reasons is because the tree gives oxygen, and helps people live. When the man woke up the he chopped the tree once, looked at the animals, and the man walked away. The man changed his mind in his sleep because the animals said why he should not chop the tree down. The pictures in the book look and feel like you are in the rainforest. They make it look so real because the illustrations use watercolors, colored pencil, and Strathmore 400 watercolor paper.

I think this book teaches you a lesson to tell people why they should not chop trees down, because the trees are their home. Some animals help the world, for an example: dragonflies eat mosquitoes. If there were no trees the dragonflies wouldn?t be able to eat the mosquitoes, because there would be no oxygen. We shouldn?t chop down trees because trees make oxygen and if we don?t have oxygen we would die. So that?s why people should not chop down trees.

My favorite characters are the frogs and the porcupine because the frogs talked about their lives and if the man chopped the tree down the frogs would be homeless. The porcupine talked about oxygen and oxygen helps you live. The sloth talked about why they should live because life is so important to them. I recommend this book to all people because it teaches why it?s important not to chop down trees and because some animals can help the world.