Willow and the Storm

A Children’s Book About Ecology, Regeneration, Resilience and the End of Life Willow lives on a little farm with her parents and her grandfather — “Papa.” Every day, Willow and Papa walk through the woods behind their house, and Papa teaches Willow about the trees, the plants and the animals of the forest. One day, a windstorm comes to the forest, blowing over many of its trees. While at first Willow is distraught, Papa helps her understand the way that forests regenerate, and how the death of trees can be a beautiful and hopeful new beginning. As Willow grows up, the forest grows and changes, becoming habitat for new species of trees, plants and animals. One day, Papa passes away, and the lessons Willow has learned from the forest helps her better understand and cope with his passing. Willow and the Storm is a tender and beautiful story, meant to help children develop a better understanding of forest ecology as well as to improve their understanding of, and relationship to, the end of human life. It is filled with information and insight about natural history, ecology, wildlife and more, as well as wisdom about the dynamic nature of life. The story is accompanied by beautiful watercolor illustrations of trees, plants, animals, birds, mushrooms and more.

Frances Cannon is an interdisciplinary writer, artist, and the Mellon Science/Nature Writing Fellow at Kenyon College. She was Director of Sundog Poetry and taught at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She has an MFA in creative writing from Iowa and a BA in poetry/printmaking from UVM. Published books include: Walter Benjamin Reimagined, MIT Press, Fling Diction, (GWP), among others. She worked for The Iowa Review, and McSweeney’ s Quarterly. Her writing has been published in The New York Times, Poetry Northwest, The North American Review, The Iowa Review, The Kenyon Review, among others. Ethan Tapper, a forester and writer based in Vermont, has worked as a consulting forester managing tens of thousands of acres of public and private forestlands and advising thousands of forest landowners on how to manage their forests responsibly. Ethan is also an educator who leads dozens of public events each year, maintains an active presence on social media, and writes a monthly for newspapers and a quarterly in Northern Woodlands magazine. He has received numerous awards and distinctions, including being named Forester of the Year by the Northeast-Midwest State Foresters Alliance.