THE MAGNIFICENT BANYAN AND THE GREEN TONG LAU

A banyan tree protects an apartment building and its inhabitants.

This artistically emphatic story opens with a sweep of the Hong Kong harbor skyline. A bird swoops by with a seed in its mouth, dropping it “into a crack in a green tong lau.” The tong lau, a term that may be unfamiliar to some readers, is revealed to be a somewhat shabby tenement buzzing with life, from a ground-level shop selling roast goose to kids playing on the rooftop amid potted plants and laundry lines. As the seed sprouts into a banyan tree, it finds its place in this sweet symphony. The tree’s roots crawl down the walls into the ground below, birds and insects make homes in its branches, and children swing from its aerial roots. The adults criticize the arboreal interloper—it blocks sunlight! It’s scaring pets!—but, in a most dramatic fashion, the community soon discovers the benefits of welcoming green into the concrete jungle. Sy’s text, tucked between leafy branches and crowded rooms, highlights tangible sensations: the smells and tastes, muggy summer weather, and daily routines of urban existence. Jain’s watercolors unfurl, vinelike, so palpable that one can discern the texture of the paper they were painted on. Immersing themselves in this sensory experience, readers will easily appreciate the tong lau as an interdependent microcosm unto itself.

A lush and lovely celebration of urban nature’s gifts.