Tap the Magic Tree by Christie Matheson

Hello, Story Seekers!

Today's book requires a little more work than usual.

You have to tap it. Rub it. Shake it. Wiggle it. Clap for it. At one point you blow it a kiss.

Apparently turning the pages wasn't enough.

Tap the Magic Tree was written and illustrated by Christie Matheson, and it takes one bare little tree through an entire year with help from the person holding the book.

That means you.

If you're new to Book Explorers, I'm Jungle Jimmy the Book Explorer, children's author, dad, and longtime performer for kids. Readit the Book Worm is my childlike sidekick, and he notices the things grown-ups walk right past.

Although nobody gets to sit quietly in the back with this one. Matheson puts everybody to work.

Book Breakdown

The idea is beautifully simple.

There's a bare brown tree.

Tap it.

Turn the page.

A leaf appears.

Tap again and more leaves show up. Then Matheson starts changing the instructions. Rub the tree. Pat it. Clap. Wiggle. Jiggle. Shake the book. Blow across the page.

Every action is followed by a page turn, and every page turn shows what your magic apparently accomplished.

Leaves grow. Blossoms arrive. Apples appear. Leaves change color and fall. Snow comes.

Eventually the tree works its way through the seasons and starts the cycle again.

Kids know perfectly well they didn't make an apple grow by tapping a piece of paper.

I'm not sure they care.

That little gap between doing something and turning the page to see what happened is where the book gets its fun. Matheson makes the reader part of the machinery.

She also sneaks a good deal of learning into something that feels like play.

Kids watch an apple tree change over time. They count. They follow directions. They notice colors and weather. They see blossoms become fruit and leaves turn before they fall. The seasons aren't explained in a block of information.

You move through them.

Matheson's rhyming text stays short, which matters, because the words are only half of what's happening. The other half is a child waiting for permission to smack the tree again.

And the pictures know when to stay out of the way. Watercolor and collage, with the tree usually sitting against plenty of white space. That keeps your eye exactly where she wants it. When something changes, you see it, because there's no crowded background competing for attention.

As the year moves, the tree supplies the color. Green leaves. Pink blossoms. Red apples. Autumn. Snow.

The pictures are doing one more thing. They make the page turn feel like a reveal.

Do the action.

Turn.

Aha.

Greenwillow published the 40-page book in 2013. The New York Times put it neatly: like Hervé Tullet's Press Here, this one proves you don't need apps for interactivity.

For teachers and librarians: TeachingBooks places it at PK to 6 and explicitly reports both Lexile and ATOS as currently unavailable. I'm not inventing a number to fill the line. There's no verified word count, AR quiz or Guided Reading level either.

Jungle Jimmy's Journal

Thirty years performing for children teaches you that the easiest way to get kids interested is to stop making them spectators.

Give them a job.

It doesn't have to be a big job. Ask them to clap at the right moment and suddenly everybody is paying attention, because now something depends on them.

Tap the Magic Tree understands that.

I can read a child a sentence about leaves growing on a tree.

Fine.

Or I can tell that child to tap a bare branch four times, turn the page, and find four more leaves.

Now we're doing something.

That's a big difference with preschoolers and kindergarteners.

The other thing I like is how much room it leaves for prediction. Once kids work out the trick, stop before turning a page.

"What do you think that did?"

Then let them guess.

In a classroom I'd lean on that hard. One child may be touching the actual book, but the whole room can clap, count, wiggle, blow and predict together. That solves the problem most interactive books have in a group, where twenty kids want one pair of hands.

And because the tree runs a recognizable cycle, repeat readings change. The first time, kids discover what happens. Later they know what's coming and get to anticipate it, which is a different and slightly better pleasure.

One limitation worth knowing.

This is an introduction to seasonal change, not a science book about trees. Matheson shows the cycle beautifully and never stops to explain why the tree changes. There's no nonfiction material at the back. If a child starts asking why leaves change color or how a blossom becomes an apple, the grown-up is on their own.

I don't think that's a flaw. I just wouldn't buy it expecting a botany lesson.

The book's real job is making children curious enough to ask.

Readit's Review

I would like to point out that this book makes you do almost everything.

The tree just stands there.

I tapped it. I rubbed it. I shook the book. I clapped. I even had to blow at the tree.

Then apples show up and everybody acts like the tree did something amazing.

You're welcome, tree.

I liked knocking the apples down, because you get to see what happened after you turn the page.

I also liked watching the leaves change, because you can tell the tree is going somewhere even though it never moves.

And there are little animals around the tree too. I would look for them before turning the page because I wanted to see who showed up next.

My favorite part is that the book listens to you.

I know it doesn't really listen.

Probably.

What Others Think

Readers worked out the same thing fairly quickly: this book is at its best when kids get to participate.

Goodreads has Tap the Magic Tree at 4.27 out of 5 from 4,076 ratings and 526 reviews.

The recurring reaction is the interactivity. Readers describe children tapping, rubbing, shaking, counting, predicting what comes next, and being pulled into the changing seasons rather than listening to somebody explain them.

Another recurring point is classroom usefulness. Readers describe using it with preschool and early elementary groups, especially around seasons, trees, apples, counting and life cycles.

The negatives are thin, and I'd rather say that plainly than manufacture a complaint.

One reviewer noted that the green apples can be hard to tell apart from the leaves at first, and wished the book included a little nonfiction material at the end so adults could explain the seasonal changes.

That second point is worth knowing. If you want the science behind what's happening, you'll need another book or a conversation.

But as an interactive introduction, this tree has kept a lot of small hands busy.

Belly Laugh Scale

2 out of 5: Giggle Territory

This isn't a joke book, and I'm not going to pretend it is just because kids have fun with it.

The smiles come from participation.

Shake the book. Something happens.

Knock on the tree. Something happens.

Blow at the page. Something happens.

There's a lovely little thrill in pretending you caused each transformation, and a group doing the actions together will absolutely get silly.

But the main feeling here is wonder, not comedy. The Belly Laugh Scale measures one specific thing, and on that one thing this book is quiet.

So I'm planting it firmly at a two, and recommending it anyway.

That's the useful distinction: a low score here isn't a bad book. It's a book doing a different job.

Final Explorer Verdict

Tap the Magic Tree is an especially good pick for preschool through early elementary kids who struggle to sit through books where the only assignment is "please listen."

Here they get something to do.

It's also a strong classroom choice for seasons, trees, apples, counting, following directions, prediction and noticing change in nature. The text is simple enough for younger children while the interactive trick gives older preschoolers a reason to stay involved.

And I like that Matheson doesn't bury the idea under a complicated story.

One tree.

Four seasons.

A pair of small hands apparently controlling the natural world.

That'll do.

It's on our list of the best interactive picture books, right alongside Press Here, the book the New York Times compared it to.

And if what your kid loves is a book telling them to actually do something, How To Make Your Sock Talk takes that idea somewhere else entirely. Instead of pretending to change a tree, they learn to make a puppet talk.

Until our next expedition, keep turning pages.

Although apparently we're tapping, rubbing, shaking and blowing on them now too.

Jungle Jimmy & Readit