A Newfoundland Maple

A Newfoundland Maple takes its readers to a beautiful old maple tree used by Daniel and his grandfather to mark the location of their summer fishing trip. What begins as a simple question posed by Daniel to himself, “What creatures will visit […]?”, leads to a series of wildlife spreads where readers learn of all the animals that visit this maple tree during the year. From a woodpecker searching for his meal beneath the bark, to caribou seeking shelter from the chilly Fall rain, to a shy coyote whose coat “blends in with the bark of the tree and the soil below”, readers see a host of carefully illustrated animals benefitting from one old Newfoundland Maple.

Illustrator Dawn Baker’s carefully rendered illustrations capture the creatures of western Newfoundland realistically. This does much to deepen Samantha Baker’s work which relies on the non-fictive elements of what could happen to one tree. The inclusion of Daniel’s storyline helps anchor readers’ interest in what might otherwise be simply an exploration of any maple tree. By including one child and his grandfather’s relationship to a tree, it becomes far more believable that this tree is worthy of our interest and speculation. The final spread features snapshots of other animals and insects the reader can go looking for in the previous pages – a particularly effective way to deepen reader engagement with one Newfoundland maple.

The story of this Newfoundland Maple could have been deepened. A few threads were difficult to reconcile in the story. Daniel first muses about how old the tree might be, yet Baker does not return to this query. Also, while most animals are concretely related to the tree, a few share only surface level interactions. Resolving these textual discrepancies could have made the story stronger.

Nevertheless, the work is well-suited to the elementary school science curriculum. The Department of Education of Newfoundland and Labrador has set forth a science curriculum deeply rooted in principles of scientific literacy, citing vocabulary such as “living/non-living” and “lifecycle” for the Kindergarten through Science 2 curriculum. The Science 1 Curriculum goes further to suggest a first unit called “Daily and Seasonal Changes”* to which Bakers’ book would be a welcome supplement. Teachers would do well to include A Newfoundland Maple in their curricular planning.