The Journey of Sir Douglas Fir

One of my fondest memories of teaching was the year our school had won a Fine Arts grant to have special events take place in various grade levels and we got to do a musical at the end of the year called The Journey of Sir Douglas Fir. The musical is actually in book form and has an accompanying CD that can be played while reading the book, complete with music. It is a great little story about a tree named Douglas Fir who teaches the younger trees in pre-tree school. His best little friend is Earl Squirrel who loves attending Douglas's class and is scared about going to Kindergarten. A number of other forest animal creatures are characterized in the story as well. A storm comes through and knocks Douglas Fir down, and the animals try to decide what Douglas should become since he can't be replanted in the ground. Earl Squirrel and Douglas Fir travel across Canada for Douglas's fate and a surprise ending occurs which is actually based on a true story. It is a great little musical that children love, but it also has great character lessons of friendship, loyalty, and dreaming big. And one of the special treats about our performance was that the writer of the book and original performer of Douglas Fir, Ric Reitz, spent time with us during dress rehearsals and performances.

I've been looking forward to the day that I could pull out my copy of the book and CD to show it to Rebekah. She had some questions while listening to the story, and although she didn't understand everything she got very involved with the story. She was nearly to the point of tears at a very sad and frightening moment for Earl Squirrel. Of course, the music playing in the background adds to the emotional element of the story, but nonetheless, I never imagined she would get so emotionally involved at this age. Rebekah really loved the book, and she has enjoyed flipping through its pages this afternoon. The book is full of brightly colored illustrations, and the CD is top-notch quality. Explore the website if you are interested to see photos, learn more about the book, and to listen to sample clips of the music.