The Two-Twenty-Two Spruce Tree Crew
In this 34-page illustrated children’s book, four birds from Colorado’s Blue Spruce Tree band together, despite their frustrations and differences, to compete in a community challenge. Together they learn to live side by side and work as a team in this fun, heartwarming story.
In this story, we meet four original characters: Dilly the black-billed magpie, Dottie the northern flicker, Herbie the white-breasted nuthatch and Punk the bushtit.
This book is a rhyming story that is perfect for bedtime, the classroom and young bird lovers everywhere. It celebrates friendship, community, creative problem-solving and Colorado’s backyard birds.
Rhyming read-aloud for ages 4–8
Features four real Colorado bird species
Gentle lessons on teamwork, saying sorry and getting along with neighbors
The genesis of The Two-Twenty-Two Spruce Tree Crew was hearing so many varied bird sounds coming from a large blue spruce tree on my daily walk with my dogs. From there, I brainstormed each character’s personality, sketched the characters to bring those personalities to life and developed an graphic illustration style for the story.
My roles:
Writer
Editor
Illustrator
Designer