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I’m looking for the title of a book I read as a kid around 10 years ago, in German (in Germany). The book was already quite old then, hardcover.

It’s about a civilization of little people who live on a single tree, kind of like Terry Prattchett’s Carpet people, just on a tree (also inside the trunk and branches). All I remember about the story is that the protagonist, a boy, is on the run for the most part of it.

I checked and it’s not The Minpins and not the Faraway Tree as there was no mention of any humans and the whole story takes place in the tree. It’s not necessarily a children’s book and it was about 400 pages long.

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    Hello, welcome to Literature. Please make sure you've checked out the tour, read How to Ask (and possibly How to Answer), as well as the Story-ID guidelines. What language did you read it in? Where were you when you read it? Medium? Etc. I hope you decide to stick around!
    – Mithical ♦
    Oct 13, 2017 at 10:27
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    Hi, as Mithrandir has already said, more information will increase your chances of getting an answer, it also helps if you let us know what avenues you have already pursued to stop people retreading old ground, are there title's which come up in searches that you have already dismissed for example?. Even with the information you have given it would help if it were less ambiguous, 'on' or 'in', or both? Do they climb up the branches and have hollowed out rooms, do they build on branches. are they miniscule and living in the vascular bundles...Are they Blyton's Folk of the Faraway Tree?
    – Spagirl
    Oct 13, 2017 at 13:24
  • Was it definitely a book? I knew it reminded me of something, and thought it was from The Light Fantastic, but it turned out to be from The Restaurant at the End of the Universe absolutelypointless.net/hhgttg/guide_o.html
    – Spagirl
    Oct 14, 2017 at 10:27
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    I can tell you this much. The authors name is somewhere between B for Bunting and H for Hannigan. I was looking for an answer to this myself, so I popped back into the library where I had read this book myself. It comes in a red hardcover and was shelved with ‘The Lambkins’ by Eva Bunting and ‘True (sort off...) by Kathryn Hannigan. It is not the Ronald Dahl book above. But I still can’t find it. I read this book somewhere in the mid to late 2000’s
    – Rebekah Lockhart
    Feb 13, 2018 at 6:18

2 Answers 2

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The book that immediately sprang to mind when I saw your question is The Minpins by Roald Dahl. It's a beautifully illustrated children's book about a boy who discovers a civilisation of tiny people living in trees and helps them to defeat the monster who terrorises their forest. I loved it as a child.

front cover

He escapes what he is sure must be the Spittler by climbing up a tree as high and as fast as he can. When he comes to a rest, he notices windows opening all over the branches, and discovers a whole city of little people, the Minpins, living inside the tree. The leader of the Minpins, Don Mini, tells Little Billy that the monster waiting under the tree is not the Spittler (which the Minpins have never heard of), but the Red-Hot Smoke-Belching Gruncher, who grunches up everything in the forest.

However, I suspect your question may be too broad as stated. Little people living in a tree is a reasonably common trope, so there must be multiple books that match your description. Please edit your question to tell us more about the book, as has already been suggested in comments. The more we know, the easier it'll be to identify the right book.

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Maybe it's 'Tobie Lolness' ( Timothée de Fombelle)?

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    Hey, thanks for the answer? Could you possibly expand on how this matches what the asker is looking for? What details match? Thanks!
    – Mithical ♦
    May 8, 2018 at 7:25
  • E.g. you could edit some details into your post from the Wikipedia pages for book 1 or book 2.
    – Rand al'Thor ♦
    May 8, 2018 at 8:45

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