The heroine of this quiet folk tale feels rooted in her own land. Damson, whose cottage and plum orchard were established by her great-grandparents, vows at the beginning that she will never leave home. But, one spring, her land is flooded and she has to build a boat to escape with her animals. A stranger named Bartlett comes to help, but when he insists they fell the largest tree in the orchard for the boat’s mast, Damson is heart-broken because this was the first tree her great-grandmother had planted. When Damson and Bartlett reach dry land, her old life is wiped out. But the tree lives up to its magical reputation and allows the couple to put down roots in a new place. Bartlett plants pears; Damson does plums, and a few years later, their daughter vows she will never leave home.

As in some of her other books, Troon Harrison sets up a powerful tension between the security of home and the appeal of a journey. The Ontario-based author and poet is adept at other combinations, too: fantasy mingles with realism; thorny dilemmas sit well in a light-hearted narrative. The tone of this book is placid despite the plot’s threat of disaster; it is the elegantly rendered descriptions that add touches of colour to the narrative.

The colour in the illustrations, on the other hand, is lavish. Miranda Jones, a Saskatchewan-based artist, has framed her scenes with richly detailed borders. In tune with the spirit of the narrative, her highly decorative paintings invite the eye to linger on every page. My only quibble is that the lines on the characters’ faces make them appear a bit hard and therefore not as appealing to children as they could be.