Title:  The Hidden Life of Trees

Author:  Peter Wohlleben

Reviewer: Natalie Lincoln

Audience:  Secondary (Science)

I love trees and I loved everything about the secret life I was shown in Peter Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees. This spectacular graphic adaptation utilising comic style illustrations blends biography and science to generate a call to arms for a reconsideration of the role trees play in our world.

Cycling through the seasons, the reader is afforded Wohlleben’s personal journey as a forester and scientist and the lessons he learned along the way in his appreciation and respect for not just tress, but all of the natural world. Cleverly, he draws the parallel between humans and tress to demonstrate that we are really not all that much different – we each have important connections to family and the broader community that make us thrive. He espouses the interconnectedness of all living things, from the smallest microorganisms to the tallest trees, in the hope that humans can arrive at a better place to revere and care for the environment we have spent so long plundering.

Wohlleben’s love of nature, and fear for its demise, shines through in a narrative that explains the intelligence of trees – their ability to ‘move’, the protection they offer their children and how they know to control predatory numbers by strategic seed dropping. It’s all there and it all sings to my nature loving heart. As a graphic adaptation this would surely appeal to the science classroom and would be a lovely way to blend language across the curriculum.

The last few pages bring me to tears with the passionate reasoning of the importance of trees. I really don’t have the words to describe how important this book and its messages are. Wohlleben refers to the philosopher, Descartes, who perhaps sums it up best – animals are not machines and humans are not lords and masters of nature.