A Forest
Marc Martin
Templar Publishing
Once there was a forest – an ancient one that had grown up thick and lush over thousands of years; but then along came people with saws and axes and they began to cut down the trees, Just a little at a time at first and with care, replacing what they’d taken.

Greed soon replaces judiciousness though and gradually trees give way to smoke-belching factories. There instead stands a city – all but treeless and thick with pollution. Then comes a terrible storm with rain so strong it destroys the entire built environment …

leaving just one small tree.
Thank heavens for that one tree for, as the years pass it develops into another forest.

Let’s hope those greedy people stop and think this itme.
This alarmingly thought-provoking fable – a debut book for Australian illustrator, Martin – is a timely (and timeless) reminder of the terrible damage mankind can all too easily do to our precious environment. His mixed media scenes are a felicitous amalgam of digitally manipulated watercolour and fine-lined, close packed pen work.

It Might be An Apple
Shinsuke Yoshitake
Thames and Hudson
When you see an apple before you on the table, what do you think? Probably, like me – ‘Hmm! yummy – just what I need’ – and you proceed to bite into it.
Not so the boy in this brilliantly inventive, romp of a book. His thoughts are much more philosophical in nature: is it really an apple? Might it perhaps be a jelly-filled cherry, a red fish curled into a ball or an egg? Could it even be packed with clever devices

such as an engine, a flavour generator, a redness regulator?
Our investigator’s imagination continues to flow – onwards, up and out – till it becomes an amazing house, then an entire crazy fantasy planet populated with tiny apple aliens. Seemingly the possibilities are endless when entertained by our lad herein: does it have feelings? Siblings and other family members? A desire to learn about our narrator? A funky new hairstyle?

 

Even,’Is everyone else an apple?’

Then of course, there’s that existential question ‘Why is it here in the first place?’
And much more …

Not only has Shinsuke Yoshitake picked a common or garden item and peeled off its skin to reveal a world with a multitude of possibilities and more, he also encourages youngsters (and perhaps adults) to adopt a questioning attitude towards the world around. Those comic strip sequences and full spread scenes are fantastic; thought provoking and highly entertaining – in more ways than one. I feel a community of enquiry coming on.
Do, I urge you take a bite of this one; and then go back for more and more and … And, in case you are wondering whether our boy narrator finally samples this object of wonder,

 

well you’ll have to get hold of this delicious book and discover for yourself. Superb stuff.

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