The Tree That Time Built Review

 Module 4: Poetry Across the Curriculum-Science

The Tree That Time Built: A celebration of nature, science, and imagination.

Bibliography
Hoberman, M. A., & Winston, L. (2009). The tree that time built: A celebration of nature, science, and imagination. Sourcebooks Jabberwocky. ISBN: 9781402225178

Summary
A middle grade book that beautifully blends poetry with science. The first page of the book is about the audio CD, as this copy comes with a CD that has 39 minutes of track. Then follows a table of contents. An introduction is provided explaining the intertwining of the thought process of naturalists and the thought process of poets. The content then begins. This book is an anthology of poems that are divided into nine sections-each a part of science, for example our beginning, dinosaurs, insects, and the connectedness of humans and animals. At the bottom of select poems are commentary that discuss the connection of the poem to the topic at hand. The book closes with backmatter including a glossary, suggestions for further reading, about poets and compilers, permissions and an index.

Analysis
The Tree that Time Built seems to best fit in a classroom with the teacher utilizing it for shared readings and exploration. Unless a student is particularly keen on poems, the layout is not particularly user friendly for middle grade students. As a compilation, there are no similarities throughout the poems aside from themes. Yet, selected poems have a wide range of poetic elements, seriousness, and age that keep reading fun and interesting. Poems also vary in length which is accommodating for different time limitations. 

From a tortoise musing “so far as I can see/ There is no one like me” (Hoberman & Winston, 2009, p. 74), to the ponderings of Felice Holman and “The trees ask me, / and the sky, and the sea asks me, who am I?...someone small/ but a piece/ of/ it/ all,” (2009, p. 167) there is much to dissect in this anthology. Holman’s repeated question and answer from the components of nature allow us to see how we are just a small piece that fits in the puzzle of the world. There are many poems that are odes to all things natural and use poems to emphasize the beauty of the natural world, even a dead frog with “his lordly legs spread out/ for a royal leap/ plump thighs/ a fan of tapering toes” (2009, p. 82).

Excerpt 

Cricket

A cricket’s ear is in its leg.
A cricket’s chirp is in its wing.
A cricket’s wing can sing a song.
A cricket’s leg can hear it sing.

Imagine if your leg could hear.
Imagine if your ear could walk.
Imagine if your mouth could swing.
Imagine if your arm could talk. 

Would everything feel upside down
And inside out and ringside through?
Imagine how the world would seem
If you became a cricket, too.

Mary Ann Hoberman 

Activity
For use in an advanced biology class before an insect unit where they will capture and study bugs, pinning, and labelling the parts. Read the above poem as an introduction to the importance and wonder of the body parts of insects. Not only will this poem followed by discussion create curiosity within students, but it will hopefully morph apprehension and fear into wonder.

Reviews
From Horn Book Guide: “Trees, time, tortoises, and termites get their poetic due in these over one hundred nature odes. Poets range from Rumi to Emily Dickinson to Jack Prelutsky. The editors also provide exposition on poetic form and the pieces' connections to natural science.”

From Booklist: “…this attractive, accessible anthology collects poems that celebrate both the facts and the mysteries of the natural world. Included are selections from the language-arts canon, such as William Blake’s famous line about “the world in a grain of sand,” as well as contemporary offerings by children’s poets, such as Douglas Florian and Alice Schertle.”