Paper chase

A paper plane sparks an imaginative connection in this nested telling from previous collaborators Donaldson and Sandøy (The Christmas Pine). When pale-skinned Ginger's paper airplane lands on brown-skinned James's book as he reads beneath the forest's "tallest tree of all," mild consternation turns to a wonderful day of creative play. Lilting verse and idyllic illustrations portray the children "kicking the cones,// Building a den,/ and a castle of stones,/ Unfolding the plane/ and making a boat,// Finding a stream and watching it float." But when their friendship is interrupted, their individual attempts to reunite at the tree are thwarted--until the tree is felled and hauled to a paper mill, where it's transformed into materials that bring them back together. On the day that James makes a paper airplane from a new pad of paper, it heads out, "almost as though it seems to know/ Exactly where it is planning to go"-- straight to a new book that Ginger is reading in the woods. Brimming with intriguing themes about fate and the natural world, it's a simple tale about what makes and sustains a friendship. Ages 4--8. (Dec.)

Donaldson speaks for the trees in this tale of lighthearted gratitude to Earth's leafy giants. Rhyming couplets ("Here is a wood where the trees grow tall / And here is the tallest tree of all") describe the day when brown-skinned James and pale-skinned Ginger meet. Her paper airplane lands in the open book he's reading. They hit it off, playing happily together, reading stories, and building a castle with stones. After this one afternoon, they look for each other in vain. It's hard to even identify the tree again ("So many paths! So many trees!") until Ginger witnesses its fall at the blade of a saw and sees it being carried "off to the paper factory." A concise montage--involving a chipper, water, and rollers--neatly outlines the process of paper-making. Sandøy's fine-lined, full-color illustrations offer a lovely, airy sense of the outdoors and add charm to the catalog of familiar uses for the paper made from the tree. Among the new paper items are a book for Ginger and a pad of paper. James folds a piece of paper into a plane--which he's flying when the pair meet again as the book concludes. The simple, circular tale is both a generous explanation of how humans consume natural resources and a subtle reminder that these are gifts to be respected. An author's note emphasizes that "trees are precious" and encourages youngsters to recycle this very book should it eventually fall apart. Perfectly satisfying.(Picture book. 4-8) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.