Dreamer
Brian Moses and Bee Willey
Otter-Barry Books
Subtitled ‘Saving Our Wild World’ we join a dreaming child in this stunningly beautiful book: ‘ I dreamed I was a whale … and no hunters chased after me.’ The child continues to dream; about a world where animals are safe and nobody pursues them for food, for their fur or their ivory …
a world where the waters of streams and lakes, and the air, are pollution-free,
where rainforest trees are not cut down and valleys left to nature, locations where animals have territorial rights and can stay safe and perhaps undiscovered.
Through poet, Brian Moses’ starkly powerful words and Bee Willey’s equally powerful, mixed media collage and acrylic artistry through which she conjures up atmospheric scenes of land, lake, sea and air, we have an almost prayerful visual plea for a world that is environmentally friendly, where wildlife is respected and habitats unpolluted. Every one of the spreads would look beautiful framed and the whole book is a wonderful and wondrous starting point for discussions about protecting our precious planet, and on sharing the earth’s resources. It could well spark off children’s own creative endeavours, both visual and verbal, on this vitally important topic.
To further the environmental cause, there’s a final ‘Take Action’ page with some alarming facts (did you know that every year 3 times as much junk is dumped into the world’s oceans as the weight of fish caught, for instance); and useful websites to encourage children to get involved with various ‘green’ organisations.
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