The Baron in the Trees (Italian: Il barone rampante lit. 'The Rampant Baron') is a 1957 novel by Italian writer Italo Calvino. Described as a conte philosophique and a metaphor for independence, it tells the adventures of a boy who climbs up a tree to spend the rest of his life inhabiting an arboreal kingdom. Calvino published a new version of the novel in 1959. Source: Wikipedia (en)