Giverny
Book Award^TM 2003

Book: The Hidden Forest

Ages: 4-8

Author: Jeannie Baker
Illustrator: Jeannie Baker

©2000 (March), text and illustrations, Jeannie Baker; ISBN: 0-688-15760-2; Hardcover - 32 pages. Dimensions: 0.39" x 11.33" x 8.33"; List price: $16.95 (US). Publisher: Greenwillow Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers .
http://www.amazon.com.
Cover image is used with permission and is ©2000, Jeannie Baker.

This is the story of a rather thoughtless boy named Ben who sets out to simply exploit a bay of the sea for fish. Unexpectedly, he gets his fish trap stuck on the sea floor, and ultimately, he ends up learning all about a hidden forest, and valuing the community of the marine organisms that live beneath his fishing dinghy. What an eye-opening day for Ben!

How does Ben's underwater environmental and botanical education occur? It begins when his friend Sophie, who is a strong diver, agrees to help him free his trap. She is his guide into the always beautiful, and forever undulating world of the kelp forest. Along the way, Ben finds his venture into this strange submerged world occasionally frightful, yet totally fascinating. (See if you can spot what makes Ben fearful even before Ben does!)

Jeannie Baker's striking visual panoramas, set above and below the water level, as well as from the shore and from the boat, help children gain multiple and additive views of a threatened marine environment located along the coast of Tasmania.

The story is composed of lean and staccato prose, falls occasionally speechless, and is at once primal, experiential, emotional, and life-changing. This is a bonafide tale with two characters that a young child can "become." It's embedded with plant science and marine science learning opportunities, so it's not another pedantic, preachy, mini-textbook. (For example, just by careful observation across Jeannie Baker's pages, one can see that as kelp grows, a blade at the tip of each frond separates, producing a series of tiny new blades.) Ms. Baker meshes the narrative text with large, visually tactile, naturally illuminated, double-page artwork with success that only a solo artist-illustrator could achieve. Her book also silently invites its "child-participants" to begin a quest to identify a visual variety of organisms seen on the pages by consulting marine science reference sources--in books or on-line. Less can be more, and this rather minimalist book evokes searching and questioning, rather than smothering it.

The artwork seems so real and so textured and so touchable that it makes the reader want to visit a tide pool exhibit at a local aquarium, see living kelp in an aquarium exhibit, or take a trip to the seashore. This delightful book uses an engaging combination of nature-collage artwork using collected materials such as pressed "seaweeds," sponges, and sands--along with molded translucent-clay objects, and plastic resin that represents seawater so effectively that the book's pages actually look wet!

Most children will begin reading this book thinking that forests can only exist on land, and that only land animals take shelter within forests. However, the book reveals that there is a type of hidden forest known only to its own oddly shaped denizens and to people like Sophie and Ben who dare to enter and explore such a mysterious marine habitat. There, they can see how organisms have adapted to their underwater environment. They can observe how they have exploited the niches offered by these 100 to 175 ft. tall Giant Kelp plants (Macrocystis pyrifera)--huge, spatially arrayed plants that grow faster than tropical bamboo! These kelp plants are found along the coasts of California, Mexico, as well as South America, New Zealand, Tasmania, and Australia. Giant kelp plants support a multiplicity of inhabitants--countless invertebrates graze along its blades, fish find shelter in its fronds and numerous invertebrate animals live in the holdfasts, animals such as sea stars, brittle stars, sponges, anemones, and tunicates. The book doesn't say all this, but it does teach all this visually. Thus, it rewards many readings; so this is not one of those books that will linger on a child's bedroom bookshelf, never to be chosen again.

The hidden forest is frightening only to those who don't understand it, namely the scientifically illiterate and the land-bound. As the book ends, Ben is not the same person he was when the day began. He is no longer an uninformed surface dweller. He no longer throws fish away to die. He no longer is afraid of exploring an underwater marine habitat. Has now cares about the marine environment and enjoys the variety of life forms within it. We have seen children react to this book in the same way. That's what great children's literature can accomplish. Congratulations to Jeannie Baker for creating a scientifically accurate and highly engaging children's science picture book!

Biographical Sketch of the Winning Author-Illustrator:

Jeannie Baker studied art and design in England, and she now lives in Australia. Ms. Baker's children's books include "Window," "One Hungry Spider," "Where the Forest Meets the Sea," and "The Story of Rosy Dock." Newspapers and public television programs have also highlighted some of her illustrations. Over a span of 30 years, Jeannie Baker has perfected her unique genre of collage construction based on natural materials. Many of these collages were initially designed to illustrate picture books, but now stand displayed in galleries world-wide as works of art. An indication of the care she took in doing the artwork in this 2003 Giverny Award-winning book is her cited consultation with the respected phycologist (one who studies algae) Professor H.B.S. (Brian) Womersley of Adelaide University. Jeannie Baker is the second international winner of the Giverny Award since its inception, and she is the first winner from Australia.

P.S. If you want to become a friend of Tasmania's Giant Kelp (a true "kelpie"), visit http://www.kelpwatch.tas.gov.au/ The book itself doesn't mention this web site but we think you might like it.