Despite the warnings of the old man with whom she has always lived, nine-year-old Rowanna is drawn to the forest and a huge tree she can just barely see from her home at the edge of the sea-especially after she befriends a bear who is much more than he seems.

Every winter, a small fir tree is dug up and brought to a farmhouse to be a Christmas tree for a lame boy and every spring it is replanted in the forest.