Quick Take
- Narration: Blair Stainton brings a measured, thoughtful delivery to Wohlleben’s accessible science writing, unhurried enough to let the surprising facts land without the performance becoming a lecture.
- Themes: Forest ecology and the wood wide web, environmental stewardship, the intelligence of non-human life
- Mood: Quietly revelatory, the pace of a nature walk rather than a classroom, with frequent moments of genuine surprise
- Verdict: An exceptional science audiobook for children aged eight to ten that extends gracefully to adult listeners, delivering Wohlleben’s forest science in a format that builds lasting relationship with the natural world.
I put this one on during a trail run last autumn. I realize that sounds like the most cliched listening context imaginable for a book about trees, but I want to be precise about what happened: I had run that trail many times without particularly noticing the trees, and by the end of the audiobook I had stopped running three times to look at specific trees in a specific way. Peter Wohlleben had done it again. He does this in The Hidden Life of Trees for adults; he does it here for children, and the only difference is that the language is simpler and the feeling of revelation is somehow even stronger.
Can You Hear the Trees Talking? is the children’s adaptation of Wohlleben’s bestselling adult title, designed for listeners aged eight to ten. It covers the same remarkable territory, the wood wide web, the way trees communicate through root fungi, the way they support sick relatives, the way they experience time, but built around activities, quizzes, and accessible explanations rather than the more detailed narrative of the adult book. The AAAS/Subaru Prize for Excellence in Science Books is not a small distinction; it reflects the care with which Wohlleben and his collaborators have made complex ecology genuinely comprehensible without oversimplifying it.
The Wood Wide Web and the Science Behind the Story
The central revelation of Wohlleben’s work is one that children grasp with particular ease: trees talk to each other. Not in the way humans talk, not with sound, but through chemical signals released into the air and through the fungal network that connects their roots underground. The wood wide web is not a metaphor Wohlleben invented; it is a real phenomenon documented by forest researchers, and the fact that it has a name that sounds like the internet makes it immediately graspable for children who have grown up with networked devices.
Blair Stainton’s narration handles the science sections with appropriate seriousness without becoming dry. Wohlleben’s original text has a quality of genuine wonder that translates well to audio, the discoveries are stated as discoveries, not as curriculum, and Stainton’s pace gives each fact room to register before the next one arrives. The section about how trees support their injured neighbors through root networks has the emotional quality of a story even though it is pure biology, and Stainton reads it as such.
The Activities Problem in Audio
Can You Hear the Trees Talking? was designed as an interactive book. The original print edition includes activities children can try on their own, specific ways to look at and interact with trees in their environment. In audio form, these activities are present as text Stainton reads, which is necessarily a different experience from having them on a page where you can refer back to them. This is not a flaw in the audiobook production so much as an inherent limitation of adapting interactive content to audio.
The workaround is simple: listen first, then do. For families using this as a nature study companion, as one reviewer explicitly describes doing for homeschool, the audio works beautifully as an initial encounter with the material, and the print edition can carry the interactive layer. For listeners who just want the science and storytelling, the audio is entirely sufficient.
Why Wohlleben Works for Children
Peter Wohlleben is a forester, not a science communicator, and this shows in the best possible way. He writes about trees the way a person who has spent decades watching them writes, with accumulated specific knowledge, genuine affection, and a resistance to the kind of motivational framing that turns nature books for children into calls to action rather than invitations to notice. He tells children what trees do. He does not tell them how to feel about it. Children figure out how to feel about it themselves, and what they feel is typically some version of awe.
The reviewer who described the experience as so engaging she re-read it several times and bought copies as gifts for adult neighbors is describing something real about how this book crosses age categories. At three hours and twenty-four minutes, it is long enough for the science to develop properly but short enough to hold a child’s sustained attention across a few sessions. Unlike picture-book-to-audio adaptations that struggle without their illustrations, this one has enough narrative and factual content to be self-sufficient in audio form.
Who Should Listen and Who Should Skip
For children aged eight to twelve who have any spark of interest in nature, science, or the question of what other living things are doing when we are not watching. Also genuinely valuable for adults who have not read The Hidden Life of Trees and want an accessible entry point to Wohlleben’s world. Skip it if you want fiction, this is nonfiction science writing, and its pleasures are the pleasures of learning, not of narrative. Those pleasures are considerable, but they are a different thing.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this a condensed version of The Hidden Life of Trees, and do I need to have read that first?
Can You Hear the Trees Talking? is independently developed from the adult bestseller rather than a simple condensation of it. It covers similar territory but is written specifically for children aged eight to ten, with activities and accessible language suited to that audience. No prior knowledge of the adult book is needed or helpful.
How does Blair Stainton handle the activity sections in the audio format?
The activities are read as text, which works as an introduction to what children can try outdoors, though the print edition is more practical as a reference for actually performing the activities. The narration treats the activities with the same engaging tone as the informational sections, keeping the audio experience consistent throughout.
Is this appropriate for young children below the stated age range of 8-10?
Several reviewers mention using it with younger children, including a kindergartner in homeschool, and finding the subject matter genuinely captivating even when the text is too advanced to read independently. In audio form, the narration makes the content accessible to attentive five-to-seven-year-olds, particularly with an engaged adult listener alongside.
What specifically is the wood wide web, and how does Wohlleben explain it for children?
The wood wide web is the underground fungal network through which trees exchange nutrients and chemical signals. Wohlleben explains it by analogy to the internet, trees are connected through this underground network the way devices are connected online, sending messages and sharing resources. The analogy is accurate enough scientifically and immediately graspable for children familiar with networked technology.
