Tistou is born into the wealthiest family of the town Sandstone. His father owns an armaments factory and makes his money from wars. Tistou lives in a mansion. He is home-schooled until he is eight-years-old, and when he is finally sent to the public school, he cannot stand the regimentation. So, his parents decide to have the business manager Mr. Turnbull and the gardener called Mr. Whiskers teach Tistou about the reality of life. However, it is Tistou who teaches them how to treat workers, prisoners, animals, and the environment because he has magical green thumbs. Indeed, he can transform everything and anything into flowers and plants, and he uses his powers to prevent his father from contributing to a war. His best friends are Mr. Whiskers and Gymnast the pony who support his environmental experiments. However, when Mr. Whiskers dies unexpectedly, Tistou becomes terribly sad. Alone, Tistou must go his own way, and he disappears from Sandstone.

Jack Zipes is professor emeritus of German and comparative literature at the University of Minnesota. In addition to his scholarly work, he is an active storyteller in public schools and has written fairy tales for children and adults. In his happy retirement he founded a small publishing house called Little Mole and Honey Bear. Some of his recent publications include:Tales of Wonder: Retelling Fairy Tales through Picture Postcards (2017), Fearless Ivan and His Faithful Horse Double-Hump (2018), The Hundred Riddles of the Fairy Bellaria (2018), Slap-Bam, The Art of Governing Men: Édouard Laboulaye's Political Fairy Tales (2018), The Giant Ohl and Tiny Tim (2019), Johnny Breadless (2020), and Hermynia zur Mühlen's The Castle of Truth and Other Revolutionary Tales (2020). Most recently, in 2022, he has published a new translation, The Original Bambi: The Story of a Life in the Forest with Princeton University Press. His new mission in life is to unbury dead and neglected authors of fantasy and to create conditions for a better world.

Maurice Druon (April 23rd, 1918 - April 14th, 2009) was a dedicated scholar and visionary, serving as the chairman of the Académie Française from 1985 to 1999. There were very few children's books published in 1957 that dealt with environmental changes the way Druon did. Druon wrote this novel with subtle humor and a gentle voice that critiqued the harshness of his times. His voice is a voice of hope, and his boy with green fingers is still highly relevant today, for he tells us that there is still time to heal our earth and let flowers bloom.

"Maurice Druon, whose adult books have been distinguished both in their scholarship and their literary quality, has conjured up a little classic here to be read both by children and adults." - Kirkus Reviews