We Disagree About This Tree

Ross Collins

Nosy Crow, 2022

32pp., hbk., RRP $A24.99

9781839944994

Mouse is delighted when Bear brings home a Christmas tree – but that’s when the trouble begins.  They cannot agree on how to decorate it – mouse-scale or bear-scale. Baubles or tinsel? Fairies at the top or a manatee?

This is a LOL story-in-rhyme (which exploits all the ways to make the “ee’ sound) that follows There’s a Bear on My Chair and There’s a Mouse in My House  that young readers will love, particularly if they have helped decorate their own tree. They will hold their breath as the inevitable happens and the tree topples and delight at the ending when the two reach a compromise – or do they?  Older readers can enjoy it too as an intro to the tradition of the Christmas tree if they are investigating the origins of some of the customs that persist today, despite the Australian Christmas being so different to that winter wonderland fantasy.