A polar bear rides a whale to a tree rising out of the water. At the top of the tree is a tree house. He’s joined by a brown bear in a boat. The bears find that the tree house is the perfect place to read. When the water recedes, they are joined by flamingos, panda bears, and other animals that come by land and air. The tree house is a place of wonder, where a brown bear catches snowflakes in a butterfly net.

Artists Marije Tolman and her father, Ronald Tolman, bring their unique vision to this astonishing wordless picture book, in which each spread is a work of art.

Winner of the Bologna Ragazzi Award

‘The Tree House is a wise, clear, even poetic, example of how an established topos of the collective imagination may be revisited with a fresh eye to reveal a continued relevance to modern times. ... The book’s message is not declaimed, but is conveyed quietly. It pleads for an enlightened ecological stance in which an intense awareness that we are part of nature does not forego our need for elegance and intellectual enquiry.’
– Jury of the Ragazzi Award

‘The Tree House is a wise, clear, even poetic, example of how an established topos of the collective imagination may be revisited with a fresh eye to reveal a continued relevance to modern times. ... The book’s message is not declaimed, but is conveyed quietly. It pleads for an enlightened ecological stance in which an intense awareness that we are part of nature does not forego our need for elegance and intellectual enquiry.’
– Jury of the Ragazzi Award