My Father Is Taller than a Tree - Softcover

Joseph Bruchac is a highly acclaimed children's book author, poet, novelist and storyteller, as well as a scholar of Native American culture. Coauthor with Michael Caduto of the bestselling Keepers of the Earth series, Bruchac's poems, articles and stories have appeared in hundreds of publications, from Akwesasne Notes and American Poetry Review to National Geographic and Parabola. He has authored many books for adults and children including Code Talker: A Novel About the Navajo Marines of World War Two, Skeleton Man, and The Heart of a Chief. For more information about Joseph, please visit his website www.josephbruchac.com.

A rhyming text describes the commonplace things a boy can do with his father: “Pop shows me how to ride a bike. / I’m too grown-up now for a trike.” (Librarians will especially like the last one: “Papa reads to me every night / until he says that’s all, sleep tight.”) Although a first-person voice is used throughout, each spread depicts a different boy and dad, including a blind man and diverse ethnic groups. The bottom third of each double-page spread is a four-panel strip detailing the described activity; for example, the strip for “Pa waits for me when I go slow / because the streets are deep with snow” has the dad pulling the boy on a sled, the boy making snow angels and then tasting the snow, and the two of them sharing hot cocoa. Halperin’s soft palette reinforces the caring feeling between the 13 father-son pairs. The final spread is a montage of all the things the boys will do with their own children one day. Preschool-Grade 1. --Julie Cummins