The boy who climbed out of his tree

The boy who climbed out of his tree l 2005 (Dutch version)

Afijn-Clavis Hasselt

Cover and illustrations: Harmen van Straaten

ISBN 90-5933-061-7



A poetic illustrated story on what you feel when your parents decide to divorce.


A boy is sitting in the tree, in front of the house where he used to live.

With his eyes closed, he sees the kind of life they had there together: he, mom and dad.

At first he only wants to see the good memories but step by step he accepts the reality.

Mom and dad don’t love each other anymore. They have different dreams in life.


He opens his eyes, climbs out of the tree, finally sets free and walks out the street, to the new blue house of mom

and the new red house of dad, standing next to each other.   

While he is walking, he suddenly realizes that he is hopping. After all, it is not that bad. It’s a different life, but he almost got used to it. 



An evocative, poetic text, with stylish water colour illustrations by Harmen van Straaten.



Target group:For children from 8 up to 80.


topics:  divorce - adjusting to a different life


Foreign rights