This declaration of love for trees and forests is also an environmental fable about the power of nature which offers a comforting yet cautionary tale.

Children’s and Young Adult

Tereza Říčanová has made a name for herself in Czech children’s literature through her distinctive style of illustrations as well as her themes, which often draw upon her own experiences of life in the country, where in addition to her artistic work she also looks after a farm and organizes workshops. This intimate story about a boy called Zbyšek in a welcoming but threatened forest is based around large-scale illustrations, with the author adopting a gentler tone than was characteristic of her work in the past.

Zbyšek and his companions – Kráska the mule and Macík the dog – initially enter the mysterious forest to shelter from the cold. The forest, which acts as another character in the story, albeit an elusive and thoroughly non-anthropomorphic one, takes them in, feeds them and lulls them to sleep. But alas, the Forest is attacked by an unstoppable steel monster, and the silence that is a song turns into an unpleasant absence of sound. However, at the point where you might expect the story to end with a depressing indictment of civilization, Říčanová is just getting started: the time has come for Zbyšek to bring life back to the forest with the help of the forest elves.

In her intensely poetic text, Tereza Říčanová conveys the wonders of the forest to young readers through all its familiar physical manifestations: smells, subtle sounds and slight movements. She presents the forest as something alive, magical and mischievous. The vertical aesthetic of the forest is successfully conveyed by the book’s elongated format.

Age 6+

Read an excerpt from the book here.