The Never-Ending Greenness - Hardcover

Waldman, Neil

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0688144799 ISBN 13: 9780688144791

Publisher: William Morrow & Co, 1997

Synopsis

When his family comes to live in Israel after the end of World War II, a young boy begins planting and caring for trees, a practice that spreads across the whole country

About this title

About the Author

Neil Waldman has written and illustrated more than fifty books. He is the recipient of the Christopher Award and the National Jewish Book Award. He lives in White Plains, New York.

From School Library Journal

Grade 4-8. This well-written story retells simply a complicated tale of displacement and rebuilding. The narrator begins, "I was born many years ago in a city called Vilna. I remember my papa's bakery, all filled with wonderful smells....But mostly I remember the trees." The double-page illustration is colorful and lively, depicting a busy city scene. With a turn of the page, the mood changes abruptly; the landscape is colorless and gray, and foreboding Nazi soldiers dominate the space: "What remained was a world of stone and mud, crisscrossed by brown-puddled streets where skinny, puffy-eyed people drifted like ghosts." The color returns to the illustrations after the boy's family makes a harrowing escape and emigrates to "eretz Yisrael" (the land of Israel). From that background the story develops, describing the replanting of a barren and empty land through the painstaking and optimistic work of its new settlers. As the story draws to its conclusion, the narrator, now an old man, comments, "Each year, the forest spreads, covering our country with a carpet of green." Waldman's vibrant acrylic double-page illustrations, with their simple form and pointillistic style, convey that change admirably. A historical note provides a concise factual background. An uplifting story and a tribute to the people who were committed to "the greening" of Israel.?Lee Bock, Brown County Public Libraries, Green Bay, WI
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: William Morrow & Co
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0688144799
• ISBN 13: 9780688144791
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 32