Amazon.com
This beautifully illustrated and highly recommended book is widely used in primary schools in the U.S. to convince children of the importance of rain-forest conservation. Lynne Cherry visited the Amazon rain forest to gather drawings for the book, and the simple story and vivid illustrations capture the reality and lushness of the forest in a way she could not have by working from mere photographs.
From Publishers Weekly
In this breathtakingly beautiful picture book, Cherry combines illustrations that reveal a naturalist's reverence for beauty with a mythlike story that explains the ecological importance of saving the rain forests. The text is not a didactic treatise, but a simply told story about a man who falls asleep while chopping down a kapok tree. The forest's inhabitants--snakes, butterflies, a jaguar, and finally a child--each whisper in his ear about the terrible consequences of living in "a world without trees" or beauty, about the interconnectedness of all living things. When the man awakens and sees all the extraordinary creatures around him, he leaves his ax and "walks out of the rain forest." A map showing the earth's endangered forests and the creatures that dwell within ends the book which, like the rain forests themselves, is "wondrous and rare." Ages 4-8.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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