ONE DAY THIS TREE WILL FALL

The long and busy life of a tree, from one small seed that beats the odds to a fertile locale for another, later one to grow.

Booth begins with a tiny, windblown Douglas fir seed and follows its history from seedling on—through years of damage from storms and cold, drought and fire that leave it “wounded, worn, twisted, torn”—but at every stage nurturing the lives around it by providing places for birds and butterflies to rest, for spiders to spin their webs, and for woodpeckers to excavate nesting cavities that later shelter other wildlife. Even after the tree finally falls, its story doesn’t end, for it becomes home to fungi, insects, earthworms, and microscopic creatures. The author discusses this steady, long-term “nutrient cycling” more specifically in her afterword and closes with a nod to the past and present efforts of Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest, where this tale is set, to sustainably “steward, restore, and diversify forests.” In close-up views, Fizer Coleman poses meticulously detailed pine forest flora and fauna near, on, and inside an increasingly battered, mossy trunk that stands in one scene amid logged stumps of straighter trees and finally lies as a brown bed beneath a tiny, needled successor. “One day this tree will fall / and this story will end. / Won’t it?” Readers will come away with a more perspicuous answer to that pointed question, which opens the book. (This review was updated for factual accuracy.)

A lyrical evocation of an essential natural cycle.