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Here are the four selections based on this year’s theme, |
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PICTURE/EASY: The Great Kapok Tree: A Tale of the Amazon Rain Forest by Lynne Cherry Lynne Cherry uses vividly colored illustrations to depict the simple story of a man who lies down to rest before chopping down a kapok tree. The creatures living among the branches, leaves and roots of the great tree take turns whispering into the sleeping man's ear. They remind him that the kapok tree is home to many animals, insects and burds. In Cherry's lush full-page paintings, anteaters, butterflies, a jaguar, and others beg the man to speare the tree. A softly buzzing bee urges him to remember that "[a]ll living things depend on one another."
With their father jailed for sinking a river boat casino, thirteen-year-old Noah and his younger sister set out to vindicate their dad by searching for proof that the casino owner is illegally dumping raw sewage, polluting the beaches of their Florida Keys community. Though two town bullies (including the casino owner's son) try to interfere and their mother is threatening divorce, Noah and Abbey persist in looking for evidence, getting unexpected help from two former employees of the casino and a 'pirate' with a mysterious past. In an atttempt to restore his family's shaky relationships and to make a real difference in saving the environment he has come to love, Noah comes up with a novel but potentially dangerous plan to catch the flusher. TEEN: Never Cry Wolf by Farley Mowat With reports of bloodthirsty wolves killing unprecedented numbers of arctic caribou, the Canadian Wildlife Service sends naturalist Farley Mowat to investigate. Dropped alone and unprepared on the frozen tundra, Mowat quickly encounters a wolf pack and observes them throughout the summer. As he tries to befriend the local Eskimos who are puzzled by his strange behavior, Mowat also develops an emotional connection to the wolf family. He gradually realizes, especially after witnessing wolves on a deer hunt, that his (and the government's) assumption that wolves are savage, ruthless killers is completely wrong. "We have doomed the wolf...for what we deliberately and mistakenly perceive it to be — which is, in reality, ... the reflected image of ourselves."
Jean Hegland's Into the Forest, a near-futuristic story of two young sisters' changing relationship with each other and their environment, charts their struggle to cope in a world vastly altered by past excessive goods consumption, technological failure, and societal decay. Nell (17 years old) narrates this story of the struggle to survive that she and her sister, Eva (age 18) face when energy sources, transportation, and communication avenues cease to exist and their lifestyles change. Initially consuming and scavenging the goods in their home on the edge of a forest, the teenagers ultimately must depend on each other in reshaping their lives and their attitudes toward the items they need to survive, the challenges and threats to their existence, and the source of their future emotional and physical welfare. Into the Forest is a tale of the human will to survive, the coping mechanisms individuals develop in the face of catastrophic events, and the ingenuity necessary to sustaining oneself when the rules of life change. |
