“What are the best books about Trees?” We looked at 193 of the top books, aggregating and ranking them so we could answer that very question!

Trees, we literally can’t live without them.

Learn and read about our leafy Earthmates with our list of books made from them about them. The top 15 books, all appearing on 2 or more lists, are below with images, descriptions, and links to buy. The remaining titles, as well as the lists we used to create our article with, can be found alphabetical order at the bottom of the page.

Happy Scrolling!

Top 15 Books About Trees

15 .) A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

Lists It Appears On:

• Five Books
• USA Today

The beloved American classic about a young girl’s coming-of-age at the turn of the century, Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a poignant and moving tale filled with compassion and cruelty, laughter and heartache, crowded with life and people and incident. The story of young, sensitive, and idealistic Francie Nolan and her bittersweet formative years in the slums of Williamsburg has enchanted and inspired millions of readers for more than sixty years. By turns overwhelming, sublime, heartbreaking, and uplifting, the daily experiences of the unforgettable Nolans are raw with honesty and tenderly threaded with family connectedness — in a work of literary art that brilliantly captures a unique time and place as well as incredibly rich moments of universal experience.

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14 .) Night Tree by Eve Bunting

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads
• Treetures

By moonlight in the quiet forest, a young boy and his family decorate their favorite tree with popcorn, apples, tangerines, and sunflower-seed balls as a gift for the animals of the woods.

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13 .) Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf by Lois Ehlert

Lists It Appears On:

• Delightful Childrens Books
• Treetures

Lois Ehlert uses watercolor collage and pieces of actual seeds, fabric, wire, and roots in this innovative and rich introduction to the life of a tree. A special glossary explains how roots absorb nutrients, what photosynthesis is, how sap circulates, and other facts about trees.

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12 .) The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from a Secret World by Peter Wohlleben

Lists It Appears On:

• Tree Source
• Planned Forest

“Are trees social beings? In this international bestseller, forester and author Peter Wohlleben convincingly makes the case that, yes, the forest is a social network. He draws on groundbreaking scientific discoveries to describe how trees are like human families: tree parents live together with their children, communicate with them, support them as they grow, share nutrients with those who are sick or struggling, and even warn each other of impending dangers. Wohlleben also shares his deep love of woods and forests, explaining the amazing processes of life, death, and regeneration he has observed in his woodland.

After learning about the complex life of trees, a walk in the woods will never be the same again.
“

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11 .) The Lorax by Dr. Seuss

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads
• Treetures

“Unless someone like you…cares a whole awful lot…nothing is going to get better…It’s not.”

Long before saving the earth became a global concern, Dr. Seuss, speaking through his character the Lorax, warned against mindless progress and the danger it posed to the earth’s natural beauty. “

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10 .) The Seasons Of Arnold’s Apple Tree by Gail Gibbons

Lists It Appears On:

• Delightful Childrens Books
• Treetures

This book about nature and the changing seasons focuses on a young boy and a very special apple tree. In Gail Gibbons’s bright illustrations, Arnold collects apple blossoms in spring, builds a tree house in summer, makes apple pie and cider in the fall, and hangs strings of popcorn and berries for the birds in winter, among other seasonal activities. Includes a recipe for apple pie and a description of how an apple cider press works.

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9 .) The Secret Life of Trees: How They Live and Why They Matter by Colin Tudge

Lists It Appears On:

• Gabriel Hemery
• Goodreads

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8 .) The Sibley Guide to Trees by David Allen Sibley

Lists It Appears On:

• Thought Co.
• Forestry Degree

David Allen Sibley, the preeminent bird-guide author and illustrator, now applies his formidable skills of identification and illustration to the trees of North America. Monumental in scope but small enough to take into the field, The Sibley Guide to Trees is an astonishingly elegant guide to a complex subject. It condenses a huge amount of information about tree identification more than has ever been collected in a single book into a logical, accessible, easy-to-use format. With more than 4,100 meticulous, exquisitely detailed paintings, the Guide highlights the often subtle similarities and distinctions between more than 600 tree species native trees as well as many introduced species. No other guide has ever made field identification so clear.

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7 .) The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring by Richard Preston

Lists It Appears On:

• Forestry Degree
• Goodreads

“Hidden away in foggy, uncharted rain forest valleys in Northern California are the largest and tallest organisms the world has ever sustained–the coast redwood trees, Sequoia sempervirens. Ninety-six percent of the ancient redwood forests have been destroyed by logging, but the untouched fragments that remain are among the great wonders of nature. The biggest redwoods have trunks up to thirty feet wide and can rise more than thirty-five stories above the ground, forming cathedral-like structures in the air. Until recently, redwoods were thought to be virtually impossible to ascend, and the canopy at the tops of these majestic trees was undiscovered. In The Wild Trees, Richard Preston unfolds the spellbinding story of Steve Sillett, Marie Antoine, and the tiny group of daring botanists and amateur naturalists that found a lost world above California, a world that is dangerous, hauntingly beautiful, and unexplored.

The canopy voyagers are young–just college students when they start their quest–and they share a passion for these trees, persevering in spite of sometimes crushing personal obstacles and failings. They take big risks, they ignore common wisdom (such as the notion that there’s nothing left to discover in North America), and they even make love in hammocks stretched between branches three hundred feet in the air.

The deep redwood canopy is a vertical Eden filled with mosses, lichens, spotted salamanders, hanging gardens of ferns, and thickets of huckleberry bushes, all growing out of massive trunk systems that have fused and formed flying buttresses, sometimes carved into blackened chambers, hollowed out by fire, called “fire caves.” Thick layers of soil sitting on limbs harbor animal and plant life that is unknown to science. Humans move through the deep canopy suspended on ropes, far out of sight of the ground, knowing that the price of a small mistake can be a plunge to one’s death.”

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6 .) Trees: Their Natural History by P.A Thomas

Lists It Appears On:

• Thought Co. 2
• Gabriel Hemery

Trees are vital to the healthy functioning of the global ecosystem and unparalleled in the range of materials they provide for human use. This volume is a comprehensive introduction to the natural history of trees, with information on all aspects of tree biology and ecology in easy-to-read and concise language. Peter Thomas uncovers fascinating insights into these ubiquitous plants, addressing in an illuminating way questions such as how trees are designed, how they grow and reproduce, and why they eventually die. Written for a nontechnical audience, the book is nonetheless rigorous in its treatment and a valuable source of reference for beginning students as well as interested lay readers.

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5 .) The Man Who Planted Trees by Jean Giono

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads
• Treetures
• Gabriel Hemery

Twenty years ago Chelsea Green published the first trade edition of The Man Who Planted Trees, a timeless eco-fable about what one person can do to restore the earth. The hero of the story, Elzéard Bouffier, spent his life planting one hundred acorns a day in a desolate, barren section of Provence in the south of France. The result was a total transformation of the landscape-from one devoid of life, with miserable, contentious inhabitants, to one filled with the scent of flowers, the songs of birds, and fresh, flowing water.

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4 .) The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein

Lists It Appears On:

• USA Today
• Goodreads
• Treetures

“Once there was a tree…and she loved a little boy.’

So begins a story of unforgettable perception, beautifully written and illustrated by the gifted and versatile Shel Silverstein.

Every day the boy would come to the tree to eat her apples, swing from her branches, or slide down her trunk…and the tree was happy. But as the boy grew older he began to want more from the tree, and the tree gave and gave and gave.

This is a tender story, touched with sadness, aglow with consolation. Shel Silverstein has created a moving parable for readers of all ages that offers an affecting interpretation of the gift of giving and a serene acceptance of another’s capacity to love in return.”

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3 .) National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Trees: Western Region by Elbert L. Little

Lists It Appears On:

• Goodreads
• Thought Co. 2
• Thought Co.

All 933 identification pictures are full-color photos of significant details of virtually all native trees and many cultivated species as you see them in their natural habitat.

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2 .) National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Trees: Eastern Region by Elbert L. Little

Lists It Appears On:

• Thought Co. 2
• Thought Co.
• Goodreads

“Tree peepers everywhere will enjoy these two guides which explore the incredible environment of our country’s forests-including seasonal features, habitat, range, and lore. Nearly 700 species of trees are detailed in photographs of leaf shape, bark, flowers, fruit, and fall leaves — all can be quickly accessed making this the ideal field guide for any time of year.

Note: the Eastern Edition generally covers states east of the Rocky Mountains, while the Western Edition covers the Rocky Mountain range and all the states to the west of it.”

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1 .) American Canopy: Trees, Forests, and the Making of a Nation by Eric Rutkow

Lists It Appears On:

• Thought Co. 2
• Goodreads
• Conservation International

“Among American Canopy’s many captivating stories: the Liberty Trees, where colonists gathered to plot rebellion against the British; Henry David Thoreau’s famous retreat into the woods; the creation of New York City’s Central Park; the great fire of 1871 that killed a thousand people in the lumber town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin; the fevered attempts to save the American chestnut and the American elm from extinction; and the controversy over spotted owls and the old-growth forests they inhabited. Rutkow also explains how trees were of deep interest to such figures as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Teddy Roosevelt, and Franklin Roosevelt, who oversaw the planting of some three billion trees nationally in his time as president.

Never before has anyone treated our country’s trees and forests as the subject of a broad historical study, and the result is an accessible, informative, and thoroughly entertaining read. Audacious in its four-hundred-year scope, authoritative in its detail, and elegant in its execution, American Canopy is perfect for history buffs and nature lovers alike and announces Eric Rutkow as a major new author of popular history.”

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The Additional Best Tree Books (Fiction & Nonfiction)

13 Best Tree Book Sources/Lists