The Hugging Tree: A Story about Resilience

Finalist, Green Earth Book Awards
Selected for the New York Botanical Garden’s LuEsther T. Mertz Library
Included in Wordcrate’s resilience activity box

The Hugging Tree tells the story of a little tree growing all alone on a cliff, by a vast and mighty sea. Reading this book with your child can be a way to teach resilience, self-confidence, and self-control and help you discuss challenges your child may be facing at home or school.

Alone on a mighty cliff by the sea, a tiny tree struggles to grow and thrive. She is nurtured by the sea, sun and moon, and becomes home to a family of loons. But winter ice storms and bitter cold break her boughs and roots. Will she survive? Find out how the hugging tree grows until she can hold and shelter others.
Even though childhood can be a wondrous and carefree time, children must deal with difficulties as they grow. Those range from minor disappointments like losing a game, arguing with a friend or sibling, earning a poor grade...to significant blows such as the death of a parent or loved one, abuse, or neglect.

Through all her troubles, the Hugging Tree holds fast. Sustained by the natural world and the kindness and compassion of one little boy, the tree grows and grows until it can hold and shelter others under its immense green canopy. Every day, people of all ages come to rest and sit under the tree. The resilience of the Hugging Tree calls to mind the potential in all of us: to thrive, despite times of struggle and difficulty. To nurture the little spark of hope and resolve. To dream and to grow, just where we are.

Psychologists use the term resilience to describe an individual’s ability to adapt successfully to challenging events. Reading this book with your child can be a way to teach resilience, self-confidence, and self-control and help you discuss challenges your child may be facing at home or school. This book has been used as an inspiration and teaching tool by teachers, librarians, pastors, rabbis, and parents around the world. There are more than two dozen read-a-louds of the book available on You Tube. Children enjoy making their own drawings of hugging trees, with words like ＂love＂ and ＂perseverance＂ alongside the branches. They enjoy outdoor read-a-louds accompanied by hugging and being hugged by trees.

A Note to Parents by Elizabeth McCallum, PhD, provides information about resilience, and guidelines for building resilience in children.

Jill Neimark is an author of fiction and nonfiction, an award-winning science journalist and essayist, and former features editor at Psychology Today magazine. Her credits include the middle-grade novels The Secret Spiraland The Golden Rectangle, the adult novel Bloodsong, and the adult nonfiction title Why Good Things Happen to Good People: How to Live a Longer, Healthier, Happier Life by the Simple Act of Giving. Her picture books include I Want Your Moo and Toodles & Teeny: A Story of Friendship. She lives in Georgia. Visit her at www.jillneimark.com and follow her on Facebook and Twitter: @JillNeimark.

Nicole Wong is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. Her illustrations have been featured in several children’s books, including No Monkeys, No Chocolate and Ferry Tail. Nicole lives with her husband, daughter, and their dogs and cat in Massachusetts. Visit her at www.nicole-wong.com and follow her on Facebook: @painternik and Instagram: @painternik9.