The Curvy Tree: A Tale from the Land of Stories

by Chris Colfer, Brandon Dorman (Illustrator)

Overview

The debut picture book from #1 New York Times bestselling author Chris Colfer

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who didn't quite fit in. When she runs away, she happens upon a curvy tree who helps her understand the importance of being different! This picture book stands alone, but also plays an important role in the Land of Stories series—making this a must-have book for fans and new readers alike!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316406857
Publisher:	Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Publication date:	10/27/2015
Series:	The Land of Stories
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	575,322
Product dimensions:	10.10(w) x 10.10(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Chris Colfer is a #1 New York Times bestselling author and Golden Globe-winning actor. He was honored as a member of the TIME 100, Time magazine’s annual list of the one hundred most influential people in the world, and his books include Struck By Lightning: The Carson Phillips Journal, Stranger Than Fanfiction, the books in The Land of Stories series: The Wishing Spell, The Enchantress Returns, A Grimm Warning, Beyond the Kingdoms, An Author’s Odyssey, and Worlds Collide, the companion books A Treasury of Classic Fairy Tales, The Mother Goose Diaries, Queen Red Riding Hood’s Guide to Royalty, The Curvy Tree, Trollbella Throws a Party, and Goldilocks: Wanted Dead or Alive, and the books in the A Tale of Magic… series: A Tale of Magic…, A Tale of Witchcraft…, and A Tale of Sorcery…. He invites you to visit him online at thelandofstories.com or on Instagram and Twitter @chriscolfer.

Editorial Reviews

"Sweet and uplifting. This picture-book addition to Colfer's The Land of Stories tales will immediately attract young readers...."—Booklist

From the Publisher

02/01/2016
PreS-Gr 2—A girl runs away to the forest and eventually collapses in tears at the foot of a curvy tree. The tree asks the girl why she is crying, and she tells him that the other children in her village are mean to her despite her kindness. They mock her appearance, glasses, speech, and intelligence. In an effort to cheer her up, the tree tells her his own history. Once the other trees teased him for being different, but when loggers came to the forest, they cut down all of the other trees. Being different saved the curvy tree. He was lonely but eventually grew tall enough that he could see other curvy trees in distant forests. From his branches, the girl sees the other trees, and in each one there is a child like her. The tree teaches her that life will improve as she grows and looks outward. The digital artwork is romanticized, befitting the story's tone, but the message is a bit over-the-top and saccharine. VERDICT The well-intentioned story is held back by awkward phrasing and cloying illustrations.—Laura Hunter, Mount Laurel Library, NJ

School Library Journal

2015-08-26
A child with ostracism issues finds a timber tutor in this illustrated spinoff from the Land of Stories series. Waking from his afternoon nap to find a lass weeping on an adjacent stump, the Curvy Tree enquires as to the cause of her distress. She whinges: "I'm never going to find a friend," because the village's mean other children "say that I talk funny, I'm not pretty, and I'm not smart." In response, the tree informs her that his twisted limbs saved him from loggers years ago, and then he lifts her up to see more curvy trees all around, each with a child in its branches. You'll find friends aplenty, he assures her, when you grow up and leave town—or, as he puts it, "look past the horizon." The narrative is not only trite, but contradictory, as the child sees the tree on one page and on the next "didn't even notice it." Dorman endows the golden-brown Curvy Tree with kindly features, dominated by a ski-shaped nose, that slide freely up and down the trunk. Though an evergreen in the Land of Stories novels, here it looks much more like a hazel, with sparse foliage and corkscrew boughs. The child displays no such signs of physical unattractiveness; on the contrary, her cute, gigantic spectacles and woolly blonde mane make the "not pretty" business sound more like peer envy than teasing. Pure corn syrup. (Picture book. 6-8)

Kirkus Reviews