A 10-year-old nature expert (my granddaughter) told me trees have feelings too.

Clever, this budding naturalist, but not original. I think it was J.R.R. Tolkien’s Tree Beard that first said it; or maybe Christopher Robin from Winnie the Pooh; or maybe an early human-ite wandering in the wilderness…

A grandfatherly tree near the Provo Tabernacle, Utah.

In this frantic the-future-is-us world we are fortunate that if trees do have feelings they keep them to themselves. Just think of how many careless boys, indiscriminating dogs and lumberjacks would be groundcover by now.

Once I attended a lecture by a children’s author who told how she communicated with trees.

She would go into the woods, put her hand on a tree, close her eyes and wait for it to speak. And it spoke—or maybe she said it just shared feelings. Maybe it was just special trees. I didn’t take notes.

I tried talking to a tree once and never heard anything. I was a little spooked about it anyway—that might have impaired the communication lines.

I don’t make light of the art of talking to trees or of anything else I don’t understand. I think it’s fascinating. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to speak to trees? And have them speak back and tell of what they’ve seen?

I picture a scene from H.G. Wells’ “The Time Machine” when the Time Traveller pushes his lever forward and centuries rise and collapse before his eyes. (Who can forget that delicious, 1960 movie of “The Time Machine” with the white-skinned Morlocks herding the beautiful Eloi deep into the underground.)

But, I digress.

Trees can’t share their feelings or the Morlocks or millennia they’ve witnessed.

In their absence we have authors. Some who speak with trees; some who write of time traveling; some who write of little boys with honey-loving bears. They create, they relate, they explain, they entertain. They give our minds opportunities to leap, to settle, to be satisfied.

According to a Google study algorithm done in 2010 almost 130 million books have been published in the world—from Best Sellers to a single thesis. What a wonderful thing. For more about it check out Google Books Project.

All that imagination and creativity waiting for our eyes, our hands and our e-readers.

No doubt, though, if trees could talk they would prefer e-books.