My Towering Tree

Discover all the joyful moments and adventures waiting right outside your door in this mindful rhyming picture book celebration of backyard nature.

In my yard’s a towering tree. It reaches high to cover me. I lie beneath the towering tree and think my thoughts, and breathe, and be.

There is much to do and so much to see beneath the branches of a towering tree! Step inside a leafy backyard world where squirrels are zipping, bees are buzzing, the sun is shining, and a curious, creative child is noticing and absorbing it all. This tribute to the wonderful worlds that exist in a backyard invites readers to stop, take a breath, and appreciate the natural world around them.

Janna Matthies is a picture book author and early elementary music teacher in Indianapolis. Her books include Here We Come!; God’s Always Loving You; Two Is Enough, which made the 2016 Bank Street list and New York Times Book Review; The Goodbye Cancer Garden; Peter, the Knight with Asthma; and Monster Trucks. Janna is a longtime volunteer with the Indiana SCBWI and provides editorial services to the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra for picture books supporting their Teddy Bear Concert Series. When she’s not writing or making music, Janna can be found digging in the garden, swimming laps, walking Juneau the howling Husky, or keeping up with her husband and three mostly-grown kids.

Ashley Wolff lives in Vermont and is the author and illustrator of more than sixty books for children, including the modern classic Miss Bindergarten series by Joseph Slate, and her own celebrated Only the Cat Saw; Where, Oh Where, Is Baby Bear?; Baby Bear Counts One; and Baby Bear Sees Blue. Visit her at AshleyWolff.com.