Sometimes I Feel Like an Oak

Written by Danielle Daniel

Illustrated by Jackie Traverse

Groundwood Books

978-1-77306-698-1

32 pp.

Ages 3+

April 2024

On Earth Day, I often like to review a book that speaks to me of the natural world and particularly our relationship with the environment. Too often, it's about our negative impact on the earth which, unfortunately, has had to take the brunt of poor choices with regards to overdevelopment, pollution, and burning of fossil fuels, just to name a few. With those choices have come deforestation and loss of habitat and species diversity, and global warming. We know all that, so today let's celebrate trees and what they mean to us by luxuriating in their diversity and their power. 

From Sometimes I Feel Like an Oak, written by Danielle Daniel, illustrated by Jackie Traverse

Danielle Daniel, author of Sometimes I Feel Like a Fox (2015) and Sometimes I Feel Like a River (2023), reminds us that we are not dissimilar to the living things outside of ourselves. Trees, like us, have life, reproduce, grow and heal, survive and support. They have their own personalities–should that be phytoalities?–that reflect everything from generosity to sensitivity, daring and resilience. With each tree highlighted, Danielle Daniel offers a poem about what a child feels and how it is expressed by each type of tree.

From Sometimes I Feel Like an Oak, written by Danielle Daniel, illustrated by Jackie Traverse

The first child feels like a maple, full and generous with the sap it shares. Still in winter, another child compares themselves to a birch with its peeling bark that brings hope. As we head into spring and then summer, there are cherry trees, cedars, aspens, spruce, and willows. Coming through all the seasons Danielle Daniel ends with the redwood, the ash, tamarack, oak, and pine. 

Sometimes I feel like a pine,

calm, still and gentle.

My branches cradle fresh-fallen snow,

filling me with peace.

From Sometimes I Feel Like an Oak, written by Danielle Daniel, illustrated by Jackie Traverse

Sometimes I Feel Like an Oak may be a contemplative picture book about making connections between trees and feelings, told through verse, but it feels like literary forest bathing. (Check out some online videos for examples of this practice.) Danielle Daniel reminds us that trees are living and show us the best ways we can live, by being courageous and peaceful, optimistic and strong. She speaks of her Algonquin ancestors who appreciated trees as "sentient beings with spirits who can feel things." For those who are empathetic to the feelings of non-human entities, Sometimes I Feel Like an Oak validates our connection with other living things, and perhaps even some non-living things, and Danielle Daniel shows us why we might be making those connections. (Personally, I have always felt a kinship with cedars and Danielle Daniel's poem helps me see why, especially as a child reads beneath the tree's limbs.)

 

Jackie Traverse, who is Ojibway from Lake St. Martin First Nation, uses her acrylic and gouache art to project the Indigenous backgrounds of both author and artist. There are dots that are reminiscent of beadwork, and swirls of lines hinting at a Woodland basis, but Jackie Traverse's illustrations are not wholly of any one style. Her art reflects her heritage, and that of Danielle Daniel, but it is also completely her own, blending realism with that heritage. Each tree is distinct in foliage and stature, bark and morphology, but Jackie Traverse gives us more with her children, the landscapes, and the spirit in the art.

From Sometimes I Feel Like an Oak, written by Danielle Daniel, illustrated by Jackie Traverse

On this Earth Day, let's celebrate our connections with the natural world, and particularly trees, with Danielle Daniel and Jackie Traverse's Sometimes I Feel Like an Oak. You'll feel better for having done so.