In the 1950's, Italo Calvino wrote Il Barone rampante (The Baron in the Trees, 1957) as part of his I nostri antenati (Our Ancetors) trilogy. The novel tells the story of Cosimo Piovasco di Rondò, a young nobleman who choose to go live up in the trees and never come down. It's a brilliant philosophical tale, and a mischievous story about challenging the norm of one's time. 

 

Animation master Hayao Miyazaki, with his humanistic stance and his rich way of depecting nature (most notably the trees, from top to bottom) would have been a director of choice to adapt Il Barone rampante in a major animated feature film. Sadly he is now retired, following the production of The Wind Rises (風立ちぬ, Kaze Tachinu) released in 2013 in Japan. 

 

I made this poster using "snaps" from various Miyazaki and studio Ghibli movie screenshots and posters. 

The phrase in green means look ahead (obtained from a Google translation from English) and the phrase in white is the translation of the title Il Barone rampante in Japanese (title found on the entry "Italo Calvino" on the Japanese Wikipedia). The three black characters in the top-left corner reads Hayao Miyazaki in Japanese.