Tree Dreams is an eco-literary, coming of age novel perfect for high school and college environmental education, English, creative writing, forestry and interdisciplinary classes.

When seventeen-year-old Jade Reynolds witnesses a violent clash between a protesting tree sitter and a local logger, she is forced to flee the California town she grew up in. Jade runs as far as she can from the battles that plague her home and from the mysteries of the redwood forest, but the ancient redwoods are embedded in her psyche—she feels their call even in the dark and forgotten back alleys of Portland, Oregon where she’s hiding out. She soon becomes entangled with a lovable misfit and a band of radical slackers, environmentalists, and anarchists, and finds herself living 100 feet high in the canopy of a redwood grove, trying to decide whose side she’s on: the logging community she’s known her entire life or the environmentalists who are risking their lives for the future of the forest. When choosing sides only makes matters worse, Jade turns to the ancient trees themselves—and the thread-thin web that connects us all.

SCHOOL VISITS

Author Kristin Kaye is available for school visits: 

• Tree Dreams Science & Storytelling workshops for middle and high school individual classes, whole grades or large groups. 
• Tree Dreams: A Novel readings, book discussion and creative writing workshops either in person or via Skype with high school & college students
• Town Halls where students debate land use issues relevant to the novel
• Science and Storytelling training for teachers.

PRAISE

“In brilliantly onomatopoeic prose, Kaye shows how Jade comes to several epiphanies about her tree dreams while also coming to know the people that her family considers enemies. Throughout, the author relates the protagonist’s tale of redemption in delightfully sparse language, like a long poem in which small details matter, every word counts, and images are so cogent that they anchor readers in the fictive reality like tree roots … A superbly written tale filled with realistic, engaging, and quirky characters.”  —Kirkus Reviews

One of 5 Books to Read to Prep for Earth Day - BuzzFeed

“Kristin Kaye’s coming of age novel artfully places her young heroine in the midst of the burning questions facing the entire world, such as climate change and culture wars. At the same time, she manages to weave her into a discovery of the ancient human connections to both trees and dreams. This is a work of wit and imagination that informs as it inspires; it also marks a trail of encouragement for the mutual lives of people and trees.”     —Michael Meade, author of The Genius Myth and Why the World Doesn’t End

One of 10 Books to Keep You Woke in 2018 - Bookstr

Kaye’s first novel captures the way a teenager sees the world while also giving Jade a unique voice….Jade’s tree dreams weave her reverence for nature with the fraught and tenuous webs that connect all of us to it. Through her, readers feel the sway of the big trees, how they move “with so many other things, like another language.”     — Booklist

“As much as Tree Dreams pulses with the ancient call to find our way home, Kristin Kaye’s story of loss and redemption is also fresh, edgy and thrilling. Her prose inhales and exhales and speaks to the best in us, reminding us that sometimes we must face an ache rooted deeply inside. We must risk everything, including our identity and comforts, to find the truth we are searching for.”     —Maura Conlon-McIvor, author of FBI Girl: How I Learned to Crack My Father’s Code