For Emily, there’s no place better than the Friendly Forest, where she hosts woodland animals in her tree house and talks to the spruce trees. No wonder she feels panicky when, shortly before Christmas, she learns that the wealthy industrialist Mr. Buggleysmug plans to clear the forest to gain a harbour view from his house. He has threatened that if the villagers in Lunenberg oppose him, he’ll cancel his plans to build the whatzit factory, a source of much-needed jobs in the village. It’s a crisis worthy of Emily’s magic red hat, which she dons only for serious requests: in this case, to save the forest.

This story breaks no new ground, but what looks clichéd to the jaundiced adult eye may be exciting new terrain to children. Some will be thrilled with the Christmas miracles of the well-timed snowfall, the co-operative woodland creatures that finish the children’s handiwork, and the lesson the selfish businessman learns from the honest conservationists.

More problematic are the meandering narrative, with its avuncular asides, and the extraordinary length of time it takes to reach the crisis point in the story. The vocabulary is entertaining and the sentences shapely, but overall, this book would have benefited from the economy of style that author Michael Harris must surely bring to his newspaper work and non-fiction writing for adults. This is his first children’s book, as it is for the Halifax-based illustrator Eric Orchard. Orchard’s lush paintings, many of them filling full pages, enhance the fairy-tale aspects of the book and offer intricate details to linger over.