West Coast Wild Rainforest

Written by Deborah Hodge

Illustrated by Karen Reczuch

Groundwood Books

978-1-77306-839-8

44 pp.

Ages 3+

March 2024

 

Each time I read a book in Deborah Hodge and Karen Reczuch's West Coast Wild series (see the list below), I am transported to the Pacific Northwest to visit the forests, coasts, waters, and mountains. I get to stand under majestic conifers and watch animals play. With West Coast Wild Rainforest, Deborah Hodge and Karen Reczuch lead us into the temperate rainforest and show us the wonders within.

From West Coast Wild Rainforest, text by Deborah Hodge, illus. by Karen Reczuch

Our walk through the rainforest begins with the rain and its role in keeping the forest growing and the fires away. In addition to those multi-storeyed trees, Deborah Hodge introduces readers to mosses, lichens, and other vegetation of the undergrowth. That lush forest is perfect for making a home, and there is much discussion about the relationship between Douglas squirrels and the trees which provide them with shelter and food, and which the squirrels inadvertently replant.

From West Coast Wild Rainforest, text by Deborah Hodge, illus. by Karen Reczuch

In each part of the rainforest, there is life, and the cycles that happen with that life. There are the streams where young salmon hatch. Later they will return to spawn in these same streams, and then become food for the bears, wolves, and eagles, with leftovers fertilizing the forest.

In this wonderful cycle of nature, the trees protect the salmon and the salmon feed the trees. 

From West Coast Wild Rainforest, text by Deborah Hodge, illus. by Karen Reczuch

As the natural cycles of the forest are revealed, more animals are introduced, from black bears and bald eagles, to gray wolves, black-tailed deer, western screech-owls, chest-backed chickadees, and banana slugs. Everything has a place and a purpose, and together they help the forest to grow and thrive and nurture others.

West Coast Wild Rainforest is a lovely walk through a unique biome that defines one part of Canada. For those on the West Coast, this book will be a literary hike to see and smell and feel a complex of ecosystems that encompass vegetation, water, land, and animals. For the many readers who may never have the opportunity to visit British Columbia and its coastal areas, West Coast Wild Rainforest entreats us to do the same but teaches with Deborah Hodge's text and beguiles with Karen Reczuch's watercolour and pencil artwork. This is an opportunity to learn and to be present in a luxuriant biome unique to our Pacific coast. By telling a story with a scientific basis, Deborah Hodge's words show a reverence to the Pacific rainforest without dulling the learning with endless details. And with  Karen Reczuch's illustrations, depicted with realism and profound awe for the landscape and biota of this area, West Coast Wild Rainforest will reach many young, and older, readers and entrap them in the beauty of the Pacific coastal rainforest and fascinate them with its teeming life.

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West Coast Wild series

 West Coast Wild (2015)

West Coast Wild Babies (2020)

West Coast Wild ABC (2022)

West Coast Wild At Low Tide (2022)

West Coast Wild Rainforest (2024)

West Coast Wild Baby Animals (coming May 2024)

Nutshimit: In the Woods

Written by Melissa Mollen Dupuis

Illustrated by Elise Gravel

English text by Gaëlle Mollen

North Winds Press (Scholastic Canada)

978-1-0397-0180-9

88 pp.

Ages 6-8

August 2023 

 

Told in the first-person perspective of Melissa–author Melissa Mollen Dupuis–Nutshimit: In the Woods is an introduction to the natural world of the forest as seen through her Innu eyes. She relates how she experiences the forest, activating all her senses and thus taking a "forest bath."

 

From Nutshimit: In the Woods, written by Melissa Mollen Dupuis, illus. by Elise Gravel

Melissa teaches about the different types of forests based on the composition of trees, their ages and more, but also recognizes that forests are communities that include other species and elements like fungi, rocks and people. As such, the bulk of Nutshimit: In the Woods is an exploration of forest elements that are important to Innu culture. From the birch tree and its uses for baskets, canoes and biting art to the wolverine, called kuekuatsheu, a trickster important in Innu stories, Melissa Mollen Dupuis describes forest elements as they appear, as they relate to the Innu and what they mean for the environment. Young readers will learn about the sugar maple tree (upueiashkᵘ), lichen (uipatsheushkamikᵘ), the goose (nishk) and other birds and land and marine animals, as well as weather elements like winter (pipun) and snow (kun). Melissa Mollen Dupuis isn't just stating the facts that could be in any non-fiction book about forests; she's finding the heart of forest communities for what they are, what they offer and what we need to know to ensure their continuation.  At 88 pages, Nutshimit: In the Woods is beyond a picture book story and more of a reflective compendium that teaches, illustrates and entertains.

From Nutshimit: In the Woods, written by Melissa Mollen Dupuis, illus. by Elise Gravel

With procedurals for making maple syrup, braiding sweetgrass and cooking bannock, Melissa Mollen Dupuis also takes young readers from the forest and into an interactive learning experience, and goes beyond telling and into doing. That's her way of sharing her own experiences as an Innu child–now she is an Innu activist and CBC Radio host–and getting children to really see what she always did. 

From Nutshimit: In the Woods, written by Melissa Mollen Dupuis, illus. by Elise Gravel

Melissa Mollen Dupuis's ideas could have been a dry recounting of her cultural experiences with the forest, but they are not and, with the illustrations from Elise Gravel, there is a playfulness of characters and settings that shift the book from information to true storytelling. The forest becomes a character, not unlike Melissa herself, and Elise Gravel makes them all whimsical, from trees with eyes, a wolverine annoyed by humans, or a hibernating bear asking to not be bothered until spring. She keeps her cartoons mischievous while illuminating, and for a book loaded with cultural and personal significance, that is an achievement.

Take a walk in the woods with Melissa Mollen Dupuis and Elise Gravel and learn about those woods from an Innu perspective. It's revealing, it's heartfelt and it reminds all of us to open our senses to the natural world

From Nutshimit: In the Woods, written by Melissa Mollen Dupuis, illus. by Elise Gravel

🌳🌲🌳🌲🌳🌲🌳

A French-language edition, Nutshimit: Un bain de forêt will also be available in August.

 

My Forest is Green

Written by Darren Lebeuf

Illustrated by Ashley Barron

Kids Can Press

978-1-77138-930-3

32 pp.

Ages 3-7

April 2019

Earth Day will be upon us soon and the wonders of the natural world will call. For some it calls from an apartment balcony while for others it's from the ground beneath a canopy of deciduous or coniferous trees, and for one little boy, it's both.

From My Forest is Green by Darren Lebeuf, illus. by Ashley Barron

A little boy looks out from a high-rise balcony over a forest, perhaps park or ravine or woodland green space. But he also has an inside forest of artwork depicting that world.  He has seen the contrasts of height and textures, size and sound, and colour, through different seasons and weather. He sketches it, paints it, collages it, makes cut-paper art, sculpts snow, takes photos, and combines mixed media to capture the essence of the forest.

From My Forest is Green by Darren Lebeuf, illus. by Ashley Barron

This is BC author Darren Lebeuf's first picture book and he gives life to a child's appreciation of the forest as the child uses all his senses to gather information about it before depicting it in his artwork. It's evident how much the child enjoys exploring the forest of his neighbourhood, seeking out the wonders above and below, from milkweed pods to resourceful ants, making bark prints and using rocks and leaves to create his own forest of art. The child accepts the dynamics of a world rich with life, plant and animal, and appreciates that his impression of the forest will change with its evolution.

My forest is so many things...
I can't wait to see what my forest is tomorrow.

From My Forest is Green by Darren Lebeuf, illus. by Ashley Barron

The child's art is all the more lavish because it is the artwork of Ashley Barron. Her cut-paper collages have graced many a picture book including Up! How Families Around the World Carry Their Little Ones (Owlkids, 2017) and Kyle Goes Alone (Owlkids, 2015), but now she goes beyond that style to show how a child interprets the natural world through his art. From his leaves taped to paper, or his sponge-painted moss and Polaroids, Ashley Barron brings his perspective to us, from a child's eye to a reader's. It's detailed and colourful, like nature itself, and takes us all on a walk into a forest that is mostly green but much more.

From My Forest is Green by Darren Lebeuf, illus. by Ashley Barron