The Flying Tree - A Árvore Voadora : Bilingual Children's Book in English and Portuguese. Suitable for preschool, kindergarten and at home!

by Ingo Blum, Supuni Suriyarachchi (Illustrator), Tiago Gomes (Translator)

On a hill, there stood a tree. He felt lonely and bored and wanted to break free.
“I wish I could fly up in the sky and see the world from above— from this place, I want to flee." When a magic swallow helps him to drag out his roots and fly, he finds himself up in the sky, looking down to the earth. What will he find, what will he see? And Will he fly back home where he belongs? Kids will learn different places, objects, and simple questions and answers. Here’s what makes this book
Kids learn quickly and easily. With bilingual children’s books, you set them up for success and expand their horizons from an early age! This dual language book is part of a series of bedtime stories that are specifically designed to teach children new foreign words and phrases as you read to them.

Teach Your Children First Words in English or Portuguese. _________

REVIEWERS FROM AMAZON SAY ABOUT THIS BILINGUAL

★★★★★ "There is no place like home."
★★★★★ "Wonderful adventure.”
★★★★★ "The book is so pretty. A very cute story. The author always does amazing books for children."
★★★★★ "Adorable book.“

Genres: Childrens

60 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 28, 2023

About the author

Ingo Blum is a German author and comedian. His journey to becoming a children’s book author began during his day job. He has always enjoyed projects where he could create artwork for kids. Eventually, he became a writer and graphic designer in the evenings - and started writing children's stories to accompany these projects for fun. With some encouragement from his friends and family (and a lot of kids!), he decided to share his stories with the world.
Ingo works with illustrators from all over the world with whom he constantly develops new concepts and stories.

Please visit him at www.ingoblumbooks.com
or https://www.facebook.com/ingoblumauthor/

Reviews

[Grady · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘You leave a big hole when you leave home’

German author Ingo Blum not only writes children’s books: he also is a comedian and a graphic designer. He combines all these talents in this entertaining – and philosophical! - little book, enhanced with delightful illustrations and lilting rhyme.

We meet a little tree on a hill who longs to see the world instead of being ‘planted’ and immoveable on the hill. Winter comes and the birds fly south and the little tree is left behind. With spring, he offers shelter to a swallow who in turn offers magic allowing the little tree to rise out of the ground and fly! The two fly over lakes, forests, fields, and clouds, and the little tree grows tired. They land on a snow-covered mountain (too cold), a city (too much noise, dust and scrum), the desert (too dry and hot), and eventually to the hill that is the little tree’s home. He is happy to return to his own home and now appreciates it even more.

As Ingo states at book’s end, ‘With my novels, I am primarily interested in offering new experiences and making suggestions for new perspectives of the world – also in the fantastic and magical. I want to do this in a playful way, not coincidentally. Children are the key to a poetic concept in fantastic situations with elves, animals, magicians, kings, dwarfs, giants, and the like. This is the purpose of the writing life…’

Eloquent and delightfully entertaining, Ingo Blum has captured a raptured audience! Very highly recommended.

[Angee Pearson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love that this book is in two languages - especially Chinese - which I don't see often of.
It was so charming and my son loved it! We were sent an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
A tree decides he needs a change of scenery and a sparrow decides to help him out. After a few adventures, the tree realizes that leaving home can leave a big hole and that sometimes, you're exactly where you need to be.

[Bill Hutchinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

UK-The story is fantastic for both English and German speaking children. The pictures are also good. The book is good for one who wants to learn German A1 or English.
DE-Die Geschichte ist fantastisch für englisch- und deutschsprachige Kinder. Die Bilder sind auch gute! Das Buch ist gut für der Deutsch A1 oder Englisch lernen möchte.

[Renee Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this ARC for an honest review. I read this book twice to my 6 year old grandson. He really liked it. It tells the story of a tree that wants to discover more than what he sees at home. You follow this little tree as he travels from adventure to adventure, only to discover a very simple lesson.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Flying Tree is a picture book by Ingo Blum, and illustrated by Supuni Suriyarachchi. We begin the book by meeting a tree, who wishes that it could see the world. It meets a sparrow, who grants the tree the ability to move from its place. It then goes to visit all sorts of different places.

I like the premise of the book. As the subheading of the book says, “Teaching Children the Importance of Home”, I feel like I didn’t get that idea from the book. Yes, it went to places it didn’t like, but it also went to some places that looked pretty nice. While I like the idea of showing the tree in all sorts of places that are new to it, I would have liked for it to stay a little more than a page at a time, and the tree would have been able to learn more about each environment. It could have taken a few pages to explain some of the positives and negatives about each location, what trees in those areas do to survive, and why the locations are like that. Because, while the subheading talks about the importance of home, it doesn’t say much about why it’s happy to be home.

I like the illustrations, and I feel like the artist does good work displaying a lot of the different locations that the tree went to. The illustrators uses a lot of different colours in a really good way. Such as in locations where it’s hot, the colours feel like they are shifted to a brighter than they are in different scenes, and there’s a city scene with all sorts of greys and dark tones. There are nice little details to a lot of scenes, such as having animals and bushes, etc. I feel like those are really nice touches.

Overall, I think the illustrations are a really positive aspect of the book. However, while the story has a nice premise, I wish it had been just a bit better thought out. Because, despite the subheading indicating that we should be learning about the importance of home, I didn’t really get that message from anywhere in the text. Just my opinion, though. Otherwise, it is a pretty nice book, and does have an adventure that kids will be really interested to see.

[Jamie Bee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Home or Environmental Awareness

This is a story about a tree that finds home a bit staid and too settled. Luckily, a swallow comes by who knows how to liberate the tree and allow it to fly. The little bird takes it on a whirlwind adventure to other places where trees live, including a city, desert, and forest. The tree learns that life is not so easy for trees in other areas. At the end of the story, the tree is quite happy to be back on its home turf. Toward the end of the book, we certainly get a sense that humans and animals don't always treat trees with the respect they deserve. The illustrations are colorful, realistic, and not too bright. The text is written in rhyming verse, mostly in rhyming couplets (though the first one has 3 lines that rhyme). Unfortunately, the rhymes are not always perfect. The book has a few punctuation errors as well as lines that do not “scan” quite right. (In the PDF review copy, "flying" was misspelled on the title page as "fying"; hopefully, this was fixed in the final copy.) I felt, too, that the book's message was unclear: is it about the loveliness of having a home or a special place, or is it about environmental awareness? All in all, it is a relatively fun and slightly whimsical story.

I received a free digital copy of this book, but that did not affect my review.

[Marichus Real · Rating 5 out of 5]

There was a tree on the top of a hill. The poor thing feels lonely seeing how the small animals rest on the trunks of the trees down the hill.
One day a little magic swallow helps him to fly, and they travel together to several places. But our little tree was not as happy as he thought he would be.
Sometimes we want to leave our home but in the end, we always go back because there is no place like home.
The illustrations are very colourful and beautiful.

[Ajola Ganesan · Rating 5 out of 5]

🌸The story is a bedtime story for children telling them the meaning of Home.

🌸The imagination and creativity in the story makes the readers more happy and makes the story interesting.

🌸 The author has taken the story in a very good way.

🌸A good story to read

[Victoria · Rating 5 out of 5]

No Place Like Home

Beautiful illustrations and the message is clear for Little Readers.
A good reading time for Loved Ones. Get this book!!

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

i loved the ending of the book

This book had a special ending in it that made the whole book of importance of being home so true wherever you live a big hole is where you once were.

[Angelica Kennedy · Rating 3 out of 5]

cute

This story of a tree who isn’t happy where he is and wants to move somewhere else. As he continues his travel to find a new place he realizes he just wants to be home.

[Canadian Girl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cute little story

Nice pictures and easy to follow along. Enjoyed the cute little message as well. Great story for our French collection!

[Jamie Bee · Rating 1 out of 5]

English Translation with Too Many Errors

In this story, a tree is a bit sad that it is not a home for creatures during the colder time of the year when bears hibernate and birds fly south for the winter. When spring comes again, a little bird returning from the south rests in the tree’s branches. This is a magical bird that offers to take the tree on a world tour. So they do so, and the tree has both good and bad experiences. Ultimately, it decides there's no place like home. The illustrations for this book were well done and whimsical. I did find issues with the English translations, though. The author attempts to rhyme in most places, but some of them weren't rhymes at all (e.g., swear/clear), and others weren't close enough (e.g., them/scrum). Also, sometimes the English grammar, punctuation, and usage were incorrect. For instance, a new sentence was not capitalized, and sometimes preposition use was incorrect. The author sometimes uses words that were just not right or would not be understood well by children, like the word scrum. I know the author is German, so perhaps he should have had this book vetted by a native English speaker to correct English errors and help him better understand English idioms. This book has enough problems on the English side that I do not feel like I can recommend it.

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Here's my September 29, 2021, review of the English-only book:
This is a story about a tree that finds home a bit staid and too settled. Luckily, a swallow comes by who knows how to liberate the tree and allow it to fly. The little bird takes it on a whirlwind adventure to other places where trees live, including a city, desert, and forest. The tree learns that life is not so easy for trees in other areas. At the end of the story, the tree is quite happy to be back on its home turf. Toward the end of the book, we certainly get a sense that humans and animals don't always treat trees with the respect they deserve. The illustrations are colorful, realistic, and not too bright. The text is written in rhyming verse, mostly in rhyming couplets (though the first one has 3 lines that rhyme). Unfortunately, the rhymes are not always perfect. The book has a few punctuation errors as well as lines that do not “scan” quite right. (In the PDF review copy, "flying" was misspelled on the title page as "fying"; hopefully, this was fixed in the final copy.) I felt, too, that the book's message was unclear: is it about the loveliness of having a home or a special place, or is it about environmental awareness? All in all, it is a relatively fun and slightly whimsical story.

I received a free copy of this book, but that did not affect my review.

[Najwa Hirn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyable and Educational

What a great way to teach young children other languages. The story was short and sweet with colorful pictures. Recommend this book

[Jamie Bee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Imaginative Book, But Errors

This story is about a tree that uproots itself because it is bored in its stationary home and then flies around the world, seeing different climates, settings, and places trees live. Some are tree friendly while others are not… especially when some loggers come into a forest, looking to take down trees! At the end of the story, the tree returns to his home, stating there is no place like it. The book is vividly colored when the tree is traveling during the day and appropriately dark during the night. Each page starts with the English version of the story, with the Italian either beneath or on the opposite page. I liked how the author bolded some words in each part, usually nouns, so the would-be young language learners could more easily match up the two parts. Unfortunately, I caught several English errors, which makes me question the correctness of the Italian portion. Here's one that has both a verb form usage mistake and a punctuation error: “The tree was exhausted, but enjoyed to be free.” Another one said that people in the city urinate “at” the tree instead of “on” it. From my understanding, the author is German; perhaps it’s tricky to write a bilingual book in languages that are not your own. All in all, though, if you have a child who is bilingual in English and Italian or is trying to learn Italian, he or she may find this book helpful.

I received a free electronic version of this children's book, but that did not affect my review.

[Jess Roever · Rating 1 out of 5]

As I read this book aloud, something is off. It reads as though the author’s first language was not English. There is nothing wrong with that, but when reading a book, it doesn’t quite flow correctly. This book was written to rhyme, but when read aloud the timing and rhythm of the phrasing is off. Some lines are too long and others too short, and there isn’t a regular pattern for the reader to get used to. Some of the words don’t make sense in that context, and some of the grammar is also incorrect.

The book itself doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense. There are some books that this works for, like it is a creative license, but this book is missing that little bit that ties it together. Why is the bird magical? Why did the bird choose that tree and why could the bird make him fly? It is never explained.

Unfortunately, the illustrations leave a lot to be desired. There is no depth: it appears as though someone took clip art and used the same few birds and trees for most pages.

I understand what the author and illustrator were going for in this book: the grass is greener on the other side of the fence and sometimes the best place for you is where you are right now. This book just missed the mark for me.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

📚Translation a bit awkward📚

The illustrations are bright and include lots of different landscapes, paved, desert, snowy, woodland, etc., complete with a range of animals which should attract young children.

For me, the tree's bird companion just looked off, roughly-drawn compared to the other artwork. And the text was a bit awkward. It might have read better in the author's native language but in English the poetry does not flow all that well and there are a number of false rhymes and awkward translations (example: dogs don't pee AT trees).

Finally, after his travel adventure the tree decides he's best right back where he started but the story does not explain very well why.

All told, it's an okay picture book for bedtime but not one of Ingo Blum's better children's books, like Don't Be Scared!. I think prose would have worked better than poetry in this instance.

I read a complimentary advance copy of the book; this is my voluntary and honest opinion.

[Cynthia Gutzwiller · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fun book. The tree is tired of where he lives. He doesn't have any downstairs occupants. No one has come to make a nest and sleep at the bottom by his roots. He has no upstairs residents. No birds have made their nest. It's winter and he is lonely. A swallow wanted to rest in his branches. He tells her about his loneliness and she tells him about her magic. He will give her shelter all her life and she helps him come out of the ground and fly. He least sees many different kinds of places and with the company of the bird it is good. Is that all he does? Does he like the city? Find out about his adventures as you listen/read. The most fun you have had today.

[Jessica Hawkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had previously read and enjoyed the bilingual version of this story. We enjoyed rereading just in English this time and with my children being a little older and able to read better this was a great book for them to read. The story is really simple for kids to follow and it brings with it the simple message of there’s no place like home. The rhyming was good, perfect for kids and the illustrations were great as well. This would be a great book for children.

I voluntarily reviewed this after receiving a free copy.

[Bethany Cousins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ingo Blum does it again! Another sweet story filled with colourful illustrations, The Flying Tree chronicles the adventures of a tree who wishes his life looked a little different. He befriends a magical swallow who makes his dream of adventure come true, and they fly off around the world to see new sights together. Written in rhyming verse, and accompanied by adorable and vibrant drawings, this story is wonderful for children. It is narrated in both English and Portuguese, which is a great tool for young readers to broaden their linguistic vocabulary as they enjoy the book.

[Serena · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did not find this an easy book to read in French. I have been practicing and improving my French skills with Duolingo for over 5 years now (after taking 4 years of high school French decades ago) and a lot of the words used were new to me.
The illustrations are beautiful and the story is good. I just found the language to be more advanced than expected for a children's book.
I will be keeping this one on my phone and rereading it until I learn to translate it easily.

[Susan Molloy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story itself is cute. I like the illustrations in this dual-language book, and I found it somewhat helpful as I work on learning German. However, this was most for my own entertainment; the learning needs to come through good textbooks for my knowledge so that I am assured I am getting correct syntax and vocabulary.
✿●▬▬▬▬●✿●✿●▬▬▬▬●✿
🏮Kindle Unlimited version.

[Tricia Gardella · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love the words shared in two languages.

Children will love this story idea and illustrations. But I can’t help but wonder if this wouldn’t work better in regular story form? The rhyme feels forced in English and I wonder if that’s an issue in Italian. I love this idea. It’s never too early to get kids interested in other languages.

[MoonGarden · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good pictures, awkward prose

The pictures were great. However, the rhymes were forced and the meter was not consistent. I did not like the prose at all. The story was all right, but it should have been written a little better the poetry was not good.

[Sandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story was cute and the illustrations were nice. I read it to my kids they like the flying tree. The message of the story was good because it helps kids know that if you leave home you might not find a better place. I received a free copy to make an honest review.

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very cute story with lovely illustrations. It was also in French and English, so great for teaching either one!