What can a single person actually do in the face of global environmental destruction? The Indian man Jadav Payeng has proven that each one of us can achieve a great deal. As a boy, he began planting trees on a sandbar in the state of Assam. No one believed he would succeed. But since 1979, a forest the size of Central Park has emerged, providing a home to countless animals and plants. It wasn’t until 2007 that a photographer discovered the forest by chance and made Payeng known beyond India. Rina Singh has sensitively retold the story of the boy Jadav. We discovered Ishita Jain at the Illustrators Wall at the Bologna Children's Book Fair. Her style seemed ideal to us for the rampant vegetation in the story. In her picture book debut, she now lets us immerse ourselves in a spectacular habitat, whose existence borders on a miracle come true.
Portrait
Rina Singh was born in a small village in India. She studied creative writing at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. She has won numerous awards for her children's books, including the Christie Harris Children's Literature Prize for her book "The Grandmother School." She writes particularly frequently about topics such as social justice and the environment. Rina Singh currently lives in Toronto, Canada, with her husband.
Ishita Jain was born in Delhi, India. She studied at the renowned National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad and at the School of Visual Arts in New York. She enjoys using analog techniques for her pictures, but is also open to digital methods. Ishita Jain lives in New York. "Forest of Wonder" is her first picture book.
