“People are short-sighted. So, we must trust the trees.”
Author: Johanna Venho
Illustrator: Sanna Pelliccioni
Finnish original: Metsämuistikirja
Publisher: Teos Publishers, 2022
Genre: children’s illustrated fiction
Number of pages: 40 pp.
Reading material: Finnish original, English translation
Rights sold: Greece, Vlassis Bros; World Spanish, Gato Sueco
Spruce has a journal where she draws and writes about things that come to mind while she’s in the forest. She recognizes the secrets of the forest better than anyone else.
She finds trees leaning against each other, bird’s nests, and caterpillar trails. Beneath the roots lies an elf door. She has seen a forest troll, a falcon, and a fawn. Spruce has saved all of her reflections, and the leaves she’s collected, in her field notebook.
Soon men wearing overalls and carrying measuring sticks start to appear in the forest. Her brother, Saku, tells her the area has been zoned. Machines drive into the forest and leave stumps and deep ruts behind.
Spruce decides to fight back, and she starts by tying notes to trees with twine. It’s a kind of protest. That’s when she meets a boy with green eyes and twigs in his hair. He teaches Spruce something about the forest she never anticipated. She records all of it in her field notebook.
Forest Field Notes is a tender, magical story of the forest and the imagination that can be awakened by nature. It was nominated for the Botnia Prize 2022. The book about the importance of nature in our own surroundings will gain a companion, Travel Field Notes in 2023. This new addition will guide readers on a rail journey to protect the environment.
Also available
Travel Field Notes (Matkamuistikirja, 2023)
About the authors
Johanna Venho
Sanna Pelliccioni