Colin Tudge loves to personify trees. They are always seeing, feeling pain, learning in nursery schools. This reminded me of my college literature professor, Fr. R.J.MacSween, who hated when poets personified non-humans, a practice engaged in by, yes, even the great Robert Frost. An especially absurd example of personification was from Thomas Hardy’s poem about the Titanic, Convergence of the Twain, where a bottom dwelling fish observes, “What does this vaingloriousnees down here.” [I still love both Frost and Hardy.]
Despite this, there were some strong passages in the book. I especially liked the section where Tudge explains why leaves turn colors in the fall.
brotherisaac 