A Walk Through The Rain Forest, is flora and fauna-forest perfection

Back to that art class that I was asked to teach the other week. One of the students produced an illustration that was absolutely stunning. It was realistic, which led me to immediately mention hyper-realistic as a way to describe certain illustrations. By a happy coincidence, I had A Walk Through The Rain Forest in my backpack and showed them some examples of this student’s work, but elevated to the next level. A Walk Through The Rain Forest is an illustrated book where the text isn’t simple, but it does tell a simple story.

The reason I state it like that is that normally an illustrated book will have text that would stand a chance of being read without assistance by a third-grader. That’s not the case for this book. Heck, most fourth-graders will be hard-pressed to read all of A Walk Through The Rain Forest without much help, but, this is not the kind of book that’s meant to be read by those elementary ages.

A Walk Through The Rain Forest is meant to be the kind of illustrated book that can be read aloud to those young audiences. Yeah, those ages aren’t really known for their patience, especially whilst being read to, but look at the illustrations. Now, factor in that every page but one of them alludes to something on the horizon or asks a question. The natural tendency in those ages is to hold their breath as the page is turned and the answer to said question is revealed. Granted, that’s one of the things that those who read aloud books need to help sell, but those who know, know.

The text introduces Taman Negara, a tropical rainforest in Malaysia. It establishes the humid climate that the forest lives in and acknowledges that you won’t see much wildlife, at first. However, you’ll hear many critters and asks you to look down to see signs of them. The insects are some of the first moving things that you’ll see, but they’re tiny and this is the rainforest, where are the big things that nature documentaries clamor for?  

They might not grab headlines with the same enthusiasm that a panther will, but the trees are the superstars of the rainforest. They’re all around you, reach hundreds of feet into the sky, and offer up a dense canopy for flora and fauna to call their home. But, these trees are massive, hulking beasts that aren’t willing to share the sun with those lower plants. Where are all of the small trees?

Nothing lives forever, storms will fell some trees, sickness will claim others and those humans with their chainsaws are everywhere. The big trees drop their seeds and those small critters near their bases help disperse them through various methods. The daytime birds might be more vibrant than their nighttime counterparts, the pigs gobble them up, wander around aimlessly and the butterflies even do their part.

The big tracks leading through the forest yield some clues. They look like they’ve been made by a dinosaur, and in a way this pachyderm is, but this animal’s girth and size certainly make a path out of the rainforest easy to follow. Sunlight is more abundant here, the elephants are able to relieve themselves and even more critters can share in the increased variety of animals and growing size of the plant life.

A Walk Through The Rain Forest has some illustrated pages that require two of them facing each other to leave young readers gape-mouthed. Even when the illustrations are one page or one and a half pages they’ll be dumbfounded by how much detail there is. Most of the illustrations are in black & white and have that impact. There are a couple of them that are in color, which do the trick to an even higher degree.

The illustrations are not lenticular, but they have the illusion of moving, as though they’re trying to suck you in. One example of this is the level of detail on pages six and seven. They show a pair of great argus pheasants to such a degree of depth and focus your mind will do a double-take. It’s an illustration. It’s a photograph but taken with an app that makes it appear every so slightly illustrated. The birds are so lifelike, as are the plants, which are located just behind them, but they’re slightly out of focus.

For those younger audiences read A Walk Through The Rain Forest to them. Those older elementary students will be able to read it, and be in awe of the illustrations. Whereas those middle school students and up can admire the book’s pacing, and then ogle at the art. The oversized presentation of the book also suits it perfectly because it allows the word to fully set up, and complement the illustrations.

A Walk Through The Rain Forest is by Martin Jenkins with illustrations by Vicky White and is available on Candlewick Press.

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