Coming Back To My Trees Book Review
- Jennifer Wakeling
- Mar 14
- 3 min read
What I found within these pages was not just history, but an invitation to sit with it honestly. The weight of the past is handled here with great care: acknowledged, felt and ultimately offered back to the reader as something to learn from rather than be burdened by. There is grief in these pages, yes - but there is also grace.
Overall Rating
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The Book
TITLE | Coming Back To My Trees |
Author | Deborah Rose Halani |
In My Collection Since | Gifted: January 2026 |
Date Reviewed | March 2026 |
Who Would Benefit
Those wanting better understanding of Welsh culture through the lens of the author’s own personal journey
What I Loved
What I found within these pages was not just history, but an invitation to sit with it honestly. The weight of the past is handled here with great care: acknowledged, felt and ultimately offered back to the reader as something to learn from rather than be burdened by. There is grief in these pages, yes - but there is also grace.
Opportunities & Challenges
“Coming Back To My Trees” was gifted to me and is a Jenuine treasure. If you are on your own journey of ancestral and cultural understanding, of healing, of wanting to approach the past with both honesty and empathy, this book will meet you there. Buy it for yourself. Sit with it slowly. You will finish it feeling more grounded in who you are - and more open to who you are still becoming.
Pronunciation of the beautiful Welsh language continues to be a challenge for me, but I did try during my read of this special book.
My Review
There are books you read, and then there are books that read you.
“Coming Back To My Trees” belongs firmly in the latter. From the opening pages, Deborah Rose Halani achieves something rare - a voice that is at once scholarly and tender, informative without being detached, emotionally raw without ever losing its footing. Reading this book felt like being both taught and held. Educated and embraced, page after page.
I came to this book through an ancestral Welsh lens — a deeply personal journey to understand those who came before me, rooted in the life of my great-grandmother, Emma, born in Glanrafon, Mold, Wales. Her origins, her world, and the quiet ways she shaped the generations that followed are threads I am still learning to trace.
What I found within these pages was not just history, but an invitation to sit with it honestly. The weight of the past is handled here with great care: acknowledged, felt and ultimately offered back to the reader as something to learn from rather than be burdened by. There is grief in these pages, yes - but there is also grace.
I should be transparent: I am very privileged to call the author, Deborah, a cherished friend. More than that, I have lived a chapter of this story with her. Reading those poignant words rendered and reflected with such sensitivity was a profound experience - one I did not fully anticipate. To read something you have lived being observed and written by someone is humbling and a testament to Deborah’s skill and compassion.
“Coming Back To My Trees” was gifted to me and is a Jenuine treasure.
If you are on your own journey of ancestral and cultural understanding, of healing, of wanting to approach the past with both honesty and empathy, this book will meet you there. Buy it for yourself. Sit with it slowly. You will finish it feeling more grounded in who you are - and more open to who you are still becoming.
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