Memories of a Birch Tree

The day they took me out of my home and loaded me onto a truck changed everything. I went from living surrounded by nature, with my brothers, to ending up girdled by towering buildings in a polluted, noisy city. I was homesick. Accepting that change was extremely difficult, but then I started to realize that the city was not that bad after all. A friendly gardener took care of me. He watered my soil, gave me fertilizer, and trimmed my dry branches so that a pair of finches could nest in them. I began to feel very useful, as I gave people my shade, my oxygen, and my gently-flavored seeds. I soon understood that hope and love could manifest anywhere in the world, so I decided to put down roots.

A story that invites us to see adversities as opportunities, and to trust that changes, despite surprising us, can help us grow.

The award-winning illustrator Blanca Millán was born in Galicia, Spain, in 1991. Since she was little she was attracted to the art world, filling the walls of the house with small drawings with waxes. She studied Fine Arts at the School of Pontevedra, Spain, and then a Master's degree in Picture Books at the Vigo University. Over the last three years, she has published more than twenty picture books by the Spanish and American markets.