by Moe Zilla

Created on: February 28, 2010

The problem with Mr. Willowby's Christmas tree is that it's too tall! But this causes a chain reaction when the top is chopped off, becoming a second smaller tree. That tree is still too tall for its new owner, so its top is chopped off again. Even-smaller trees are passed along, until it the cycle ends with a family of mice!

It's always fun to read a children's book from 1963. (Was the world a different place 47 years ago? And can you tell from its children's books?) It was the last year of the Kennedy administration when Robert Barry wrote and illustrated "Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree." Maybe it's just a simple book from a simpler time - drawn with cartoonish doodles that are filled in with green.

The first page shows tiny tire tracks through the snow, delivering Mr. Willowby's Christmas tree to his house. And the festive holiday tone is aided by a story that rhymes.

    Mr. Willowby's Christmas tree
    came by special delivery.

Barry draws a big tag on the bottom of the tree - labeled "Special Delivery" - and shows the grand mansion where Willowby lives. Willowby's a short man with a bushy moustache, dressed in a fancy suit and wearing boots. He dances with joy when his tree arrives, and the text and illustrations makes it feel like a special moment.

    Full and fresh and glistening green -
    the biggest tree he had ever seen.

If there's a problem with this story, it's that there's no central character. When the top is removed from the tree, Mr. Willowby is removed from the story. The tree's top is delivered to the maid upstairs, but she disappears from the story two pages later. The top of her tree is rescued from the garbage by a gardener named Tim. And soon the top of that tree is rescued by a forest bear named Barnaby...

But I have a confession to make. I read this book in the 1960s. I'd forgotten about it when I checked it out from the library, and then had a shock of recognition. There's that enormous green tree, with its top pushing up against the grand ceiling, and the green ink makes the tree the star of the story. So it's fun to watch it traveling throughout the community. There's foxes, rabbits - and then a family of very happy mice at the end.

Who, coincidentally, just happen to live in the same grand mansion seen at the beginning.

"Oh, wasn't it grand to have a tree -
Exactly like Mr. Willowby?"

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