The Lorax Speaks for Trees
My kids are fickle little beings, and when I arrived home from Blissdom in Nashville last week after having been away from them for five days, they immediately began asking, “what did you bring us?!?”
Apparently just bringing myself wasn’t good enough, but whatevs. Lucky for them I’d brought home all sorts of odds and ends for them, including the book, The Lorax by Dr. Seuss. They were thrilled and made me promise to read it with them before bed.
I’ll admit, that although I love Dr. Seuss books, The Lorax was a book that I didn’t remember having ever read. At bedtime that night with the kids snuggled in beside me, we read The Lorax for the very first time. The book? It wasn’t at all what I expected, but it was so much more-it’s a book with an actual message of conservation.
When we finished the book, my son was especially quiet. Since it was almost 8 p.m, I was eager for the kids to get in their beds and go to sleep, but I could tell that he was mulling over the story.
“That doesn’t really happen, right? All the trees can’t just go away? This is just a story,” he questioned.
I honestly didn’t know exactly how to respond because while The Lorax is just a story, the prevailing theme in the story is something that happens, trees are disappearing everyday. Humans are continually wrecking our precious Earth in pursuit of more and more. With my son only being six years old, I didn’t want to scare him, but I thought that maybe this was one of those teachable moments where I could actually try to explain the concept of conservation.
But you know, being almost 8 p.m. and all, I promised to take him to see the movie and explain a little more about conservation and planting trees later.
Today, not only is it Dr. Seuss’ birthday, it’s also the opening day of the movie, The Lorax. Quite fitting way to celebrate Dr. Seuss’ birthday, I’d say. In keeping with the theme of saving trees, The Lorax has teamed up with The Nature Conservancy to plant a billion trees. A BILLION trees in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest.
While I can’t fully explain to a six-year-old how to fix disappearing forests of trees, I can very easily show him how from thousands of miles away, we can help plant a few trees. By texting TREES to 5055 you can donate $5 to The Nature Conservancy, and five trees will be planted in the Atlantic Forest with your donation.
To also show support, we can add The Lorax and Truffala trees to our Facebook avatars. Texting and Facebook, just two very easy ways to help The Nature Convervancy replenish the Atlantic Forest in Brazil after decades of deforestation.
Maybe someday, moms like me can read the book and see the movie, The Lorax, for the first time and when their six year old says, “That doesn’t really happen, right? All the trees can’t just go away,” mom can say, “Nope. It’s just a story.”
A big thanks to Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax for sponsoring this campaign. Click here to see more of the discussion.
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