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Events, activities, and days out for families in Hong Kong
In a world where we are all inundated with environmental messages on a daily basis, how can we teach our kids about the importance of taking care of the planet in a way that will interest them, without boring us?
Oliver Jeffers makes the process enchantingly simple in his most recent picture book, telling kids a cautionary tale about irresponsible woodcutting and sustainable forest management. Through his sweet and beautifully cheeky illustrations of a woodland world where reindeer work out to TV aerobics, pigs do the laundry, and ducks while away the hours knitting, Jeffers demonstrates that everyone needs to use the wood in the forest, even if they don’t know it.
And not only for functional items, but to play, too – the bear tree thief turns out to have used the forest’s precious branches just to makes paper planes; only he hadn’t realised what an impact he was having on all of the other animals’ environments.
The paper plane theme continues on to the cover, which kids are encouraged to remove to make their own, personal paper plane, using the detailed instructions on the inside front and back covers. And here’s yet another layer of the book’s clever environmental education – seemingly disposable items can be recycled into fun games and useful objects.
The same cover even goes so far as to explain that the author went to China specially to find the paper used in the book, printed on mixed source FSC standard paper from well-managed forests and other controlled sources.
On the downside, while simple and charming, the book does contain some language that might leave children perplexed (such as ‘biennial’), as well as humorous background action that might pass over the heads of younger ones, but we suspect this might be so that reading adults remain entertained as well. After all, it’s never too late to learn about the importance of conservation, and what could be better than to read a story about saving the forests, while doing exactly that? Jessica Morris