Fiddlehead Forest
Jana Curll
Greystone Kids

This book, which is a combination of fiction and fact, had me giggling from the very first chapter.

After a storm has raged through a forest the inhabitants notice that one of their number is no longer standing tall: a tree has come down. Fern address said tree asking, “Are you all right?” and the lack of response prompts a “He’s giving us the silent treatment!” from one of the lichens. Tree then states the obvious and it’s clear that he’s far from happy about this new situation, stating firmly that he doesn’t want to be a log. However Fern, eager to get things back to normal, confidently promises, she’ll do just that. “It’s her personal guaran-TREE! observes a lichen from nearby.

The endeavours of many of the forest residents including Millipede, Mushroom and Moth – the lurer of some rather larger creatures – try their level best to get Log back into a tree position but with little success.

So what about Slug? Slug’s slime (also sticky) gives Fern another idea: using the slippery slime to slide the fallen tree up close to another tree, making a rope from some of the sticky and using it, plus the slippery slime, to drag Log back into a tree again. Ingenious. The team are eager to get “GOO-ING! right away.

However Lichen tells the others “ … I’m going to GO OUT ON A LIMB” saying Log is now ‘GROUNDED!” But rather than merely accept this immediately, Fern is eager for something else. Supposing they do NOTHING though.

Eventually Fern suddenly notices that the fallen tree has now adopted a new role: as nurse log she is supporting the forest’s ecosystem by providing nutrients and shelter for insects, birds and mammals, promoting new growth in the forest and providing a growing surface for plants and other things . “I guess we FERN-ally figured it out.” “It was a LOG time coming.”

Not only does the author/illustrator provide a plethora of punny exchanges, the chapter titles are also puns – ‘SHROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT’ for instance And there’a fair bit of information thanks to cast member contributions -“ ‘MAZIN’ MILLIPEDE,’ “MOTHIN’ AROUND’, ‘A SLIME OF THE TIMES’, ‘LICHEN A LOT’, and others. These focus on the special role in the forest community of each one. Plus there are occasional purely pictorial word play pages.

Highly engaging and with a wealth of puns and other word play, this is exTREEmely educative. Deemed to grow many BUDding scientists among KS2 readers.