Lynne Cherry - The Great Kapok Tree: A Tale of the Amazon Rain Forest

In the Amazon rain forest it is always hot, and in
that heat everything grows, and grows, and grows.
The tops of the trees in the rain forest are called the
canopy. The canopy is a sunny place that touches
the sky. The animals that live there like lots of light.
Colorful parrots fly from tree to tree. Monkeys leap
from branch to branch. The bottom of the rain
forest is called the understory. The animals that
live in the understory like darkness. There, silent
snakes curl around hanging vines. Graceful jaguars
watch and wait.

And in this steamy environment the great Kapok
tree shoots up through the forest and emerges
above the canopy.
This is the story of a community of animals that
live in one such tree in the rain forest.

This book is dedicated to the memory of Chico Mendes,
who gave his life in order to preserve a part of the rain forest.

Thanks to my friends Irv and Bernice Kirk for their editorial assistance; to the World Wildlife Fund in Washington, DC,
and especially to Rob Bierregaard for sharing his office, his reference photos, and his expertise; to Victor Bullen and, again,
to Rob for facilitating my trip to WWFs base camp in the Amazon rain forest and to Carlos Miller, the native Brazilian who
posed as the woodcutter, to Brian Boom, assistant curator at the New York Botanical Garden, for all his assistance,
especially in Manaus; to Stephen Nash and Judy Stone of SUNY at Stonybrook; to Russ Mittermeier, Mark Plotkin, and
Gary Hartshorn of the World Wildlife Fund and Tom Lovejoy of the Smithsonian Institution. A special thanks to Eric Fersht
for his help every step of the way, and as always, to my folks, Herbert and Helen Cherry.
Because this story is about the Amazon rain forest, the Brazilian spelling senhor has been used.

Copyright 1990 by Lynne Cherry
Backmatter copyright 2020 by Lynne Cherry
All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to trade.permissions@hmhco.com
or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.
hmhbooks.com
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Cherry, Lynne
The great kapok tree: a tale of the Amazon rain forest/by Lynne Cherry.
p. a. cm.
Summary: The many different animals that live in a great Kapok tree in the Brazilian rain forest try to convince a man with an ax of the
importance of not cutting down their home.
[1. Conservation of natural resources Fiction. 2. Rain forests Fiction.
3. Ecology Fiction. a 4. Kapok Fiction.] 1. Title.
PZ7.C4199Gr a. 1990
[E] dc19 a. 89-2208
ISBN: 978-0-15-200520-7 hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-15-202614-1 paperback
ISBN: 978-0-15-201818-4 big book
ISBN: 978-0-15-232320-2 Spanish paperback
eISBN 978-0-547-54007-8

aa wo men walked into the rain forest.
Moments before, the forest had been
alive with the sounds of squawking
birds and howling monkeys. Now all
was quiet as the creatures watched
the two men and wondered why they
had come.
The larger man stopped and pointed
to a great Kapok tree. Then he left.

The smaller man took the ax he carried
and struck the trunk of the tree. Whack!
Whack! Whack! The sounds of the blows
rang through the forest. The wood of the
tree was very hard. Chop! Chop! Chop!
The man wiped off the sweat that ran
down his face and neck. Whack! Chop!
Whack! Chop!
Soon the man grew tired. He sat down to
rest at the foot of the great Kapok tree.
Before he knew it, the heat and hum of
the forest had lulled him to sleep.

A boa constrictor lived in the Kapok
tree. He slithered down its trunk to
where the man was sleeping. He looked
at the gash the ax had made in the tree.
Then the huge snake slid very close to
the man and hissed in his ear:
Senhor, this tree is a tree of miracles.
It is my home, where generations of
my ancestors have lived. Do not chop
it down.

A bee buzzed in the sleeping mans ear:
Senhor, my hive is in this Kapok tree,
and I fly from tree to tree and flower to
flower collecting pollen. In this way
I pollinate the trees and flowers
throughout the rain forest. You see, all
living things depend on one another.

A troupe of monkeys scampered down
from the canopy of the Kapok tree.
They chattered to the sleeping man:
Senhor, we have seen the ways of man.
You chop down one tree, then come
back for another and another. The roots
of these great trees will wither and die,
and there will be nothing left to hold
the earth in place. When the heavy rains
come, the soil will be washed away and
the forest will become a desert.

A toucan, a macaw, and a cock-of