From spring to spring, we watch life thrive in and around the old oak tree on a hillside far from people. When the buds begin to open, we see a red-tailed hawk nesting and a caterpillar chewing on leaves. Once the tree is in full bloom, woodpeckers, robins, and squirrels make their nests in the branches, and honeybees fly in and out of their hive in the trunk. In autumn, we see the acorns fall. One of them will sprout in the spring and send down the roots of a new oak. Detailed, realistic line drawings with watercolor washes illustrate the yearly cycle described in the text, while smaller black-and-white drawings provide additional facts about specific animals or events. (Ages 5-10)

As the oak tree blossoms, robins and squirrels begin to build their nests, bees fly in and out of their hive, and the tree comes to life. Not only is the oak a living thing itself, it is also a habitat for other living creatures that depend on it for nesting, food, and shelter. Readers follow the tree and its inhabitants through seasons of flowering, leafing and fruiting, the return to a deep winter sleep, and the springtime reawakening -- completing a cycle which has gone unbroken for more than one hundred years.