The Tin Forest
Helen Ward
& illustrated by Wayne Anderson

"There was once a wide, windswept place, near nowhere and close to forgotten, that was filled with all the things that no one wanted. Right in the middle was a small house, with small windows, that looked out on other people's rubbish and bad weather."

The man that lives in this house, in the landfill, lives surrounded by grey waste, and he continually tries to tidy, sift, and sort the rubbish. This Sisyphian task is alleviated only by his dreams - of lush and vibrant forests.

The world he is embedded in stays the same, he can never get ahead of the incoming waste.

One day, he sees a broken light bulb, and he has an idea - it reminds him of the petals of a flower. He rivets it to a plunger, that cups it, with some scraps of tin, that he has shaped like leaves, rivetted to the handle as if it were a stalk.

Slowly he converts the fields of waste into:

"A forest made of tin. It was not the forest of his dreams, but it was a forest just the same."

Into this forest he places more creations that he has concocted - birds and cats and lizards... Then one day a real bird flew in and ate some scraps. It flew away.

The man was saddened. This splash of colour had outshone his creation. He made a wish, and the next day the bird returned, with its mate. Seeds were dropped, and plants grew. Other creatures returned, to stroll by their tin counterparts, and soon a vibrant forest appeared, "near nowhere and close to forgotten."

This is a beautiful tale with darkly powerful illustrations. We might wish our own world to be repaired in such a fashion. Of course, this is exactly what Nature continually and forever tries, season after season, to do. Once man was drowned by this irrepressible tide, and then he slowly evolved ways to make small safe harbours and islands against the sea of seasons.

The Tin Forest is a little further along, near to today. Man has found ways to develop havens against the elements, yes, but he has gone too far. Those of us with eyes to see, like the little old man in the story, might wish that we may find a balance again. Where did we pass the balance point? Can we return there? Can we find a way to not overshoot and end up once again continually swamped by the tide, or a way to, on reaching the balance point, create a kind of stasis that averts our repeating the cycle of destruction?

Whatever the answers may be, Nature shall return and undo our damage. This is cold comfort, though, if the conditions we create before that happens destroy us and all our works - would that we could know with certainty where to pull back from our headlong flight towards destruction, and where we are on safer ground. This, though, is a luxury that we are fast outrunning.

Review: TB

Dinosaurs & All That Rubbish
Michael Foreman

Wherein Man sees the stars, and uses all the Earth's resources in order to attain them.

When he reaches the moon, he looks around and sees what a bankrupt place it is. He wistfully wishes for grass, flowers, trees.

Further off is another star.

"I will go to that star," said the man, and away he went again in his rocket.

The Earth is a steaming brown mess, yet far below are sleeping dinosaurs. They awake after hundreds of years, as the heat of the rubbish dumps burning above them disturbs them.

A dinosaur held his nose as he looked around.

"POOH!" he said.

"There is nothing on this planet but mess. If we are going to live here we'll
have to get busy."

So they proceed to clear up after man, and as they do so, the Earth is replenished.

Meanwhile, the man still travels on to his 'new star' unaware that in truth it is his old Earth, reborn. Touching down, he looks around:

"At last," he said, "I have found my paradise.

The dinosaurs have something to say about this, and man is rudely disabused of the notion that it is his, and is then shocked to discover that it is the old Earth he had destroyed.

Eventually, the argument between man and beast stops, and man is made to promise that he will live in harmony this time round, on his second chance new Earth. It is not simply for him and his:

"This time the earth belongs to everyone, not parts of it to
certain people but all of it to everyone, to be enjoyed and cared for."

A celebration follows.

It is hardly necessary to pick out the message here. As a picture book for the very young, this is a lovely ecological fable, and the parents' that have the pleasure of relating the tale to their children may wake-up to themselves just a little, too.

Review: TB

The Lorax (see also Dr Seuss`s Fabulous Fables
Dr Seuss

This is a typical Dr Seuss book - surreal illustrations and a tale told in rhyme. The subject is less typical, however. The Lorax is a scathing look at the logic of industrialist consumer capitalism, and it's, you know, for kids! It is a wonderfully told, if depressing, cautionary tale.

The tale opens in a broken down garden, at the house of a creature called the Once-ler. There is a mysterious entity called a Lorax, that legend tells was lifted away from a spot by the Oncer-ler's house. The mystery is why was it taken, what was it, why was it there? For a small fee the Once-ler agrees to tell the tale to a small boy who has gone there to investigate the tales he has heard.

The Once-ler then relates a tale of greed, capitalism and environmental rape, centering around the wonderous Truffula tree. He himself is the businessman who harvest the trees to make products whose popularity ramps up production to unsustainable levels.

The Lorax is an odd creature, that pops up from the stump of a felled Truffula:

"Mister!" he said with a sawdusty sneeze,
"I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees.
I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.
And I'm asking you, sir, a the top of my lungs" -
he was very upset as he shouted and puffed -
"What's that THING you've made out of my Truffula tuft?"

The Lorax's warnings are ignored, and as production increases and the daily harvest of Truffulas inceases, the Lorax disappears for a while. When he returns he issues a new warning: that the Truffula is not the only entity he speaks for and seeks to protect - other creatures too are losing their homes, and their food as the Truffula forests diminish.

"They loved living here. But I can't let them stay.
They'll have to find food. And I hope that they may.
Good luck, boys," he cried. And he sent tham away.

I, the Oncer-ler, felt sad
as I watched them all go.
BUT...
business is business
And business must grow
regardless of crummies in tummies, you know.

The number of species that suffer increases, the range of eco-niches damaged increaes, the Lorax's complaints get louder and more angry. Until, the Once-ler shouts back that he intends to just keep his empire building, and that he intends on:

"turning MORE Truffula Trees into Thneeds
which everyone, EVERYONE, EVERYONE needs!"

The rampant consumerist ethos, one that underpins all of modern capitalism and drives our economies, is based on the belief that we NEED what we do not. The Thneed is a lovely jumper, perhaps similar to an Angora Sweater. A luxury item, coveted, but needed? No.

[But] at that very moment, we heard a loud whack!
From outside in the fields came a sickening smack
of an axe on a tree. Then we heard the tree fall
The very last Truffula Tree of them all!

The business collapses, amongst the smoggy ruins of the landscape, and the Lorax takes his leave with a sad backwards glance. He has left behind a stone plinth, with one word carved upon it - UNLESS.

The Once-ler's tale is told. He realises what was meant by 'UNLESS', a meaning that had seemed opaque over the years. But, now the boy was there to hear the tale, the Once-ler realised that 'UNLESS' meant, unless the lesson is learned and passed on, then the whole world will end up destroyed by our greed. We must learn from our mistakes, we must learn care. The Once-ler passes on to the boy the very last Truffula seed, hoping that it will take root and thrive and that this will lead to the return of the Lorax and all his friends.

So, Dr Seuss has here created a wonderful fable for our times, one filled with greed and careless destruction, and ended with hope, a hope he invests in our children, a hope he gives to us to pass on to our children.

The only quibble is over allowing ther to be somewhere for the creatures that have 'left' to go to, and thus to come back from. Here on our small resource limited globe, we know that the biomes that are spared from the factories are nonetheless affected as the ripples caused by our damage spread throughout our finite pond. Extinction is a global phenomenon, not merely local. We can only hope that the situatuion is still recoverable, but will we see the Lorax again, or is he, like the dodo, gone for good? Perhaps we can save other species, and ourselves?

That one small seed is a small hope - will it germinate? Will it thrive? Can it reproduce alone? Will a new forest of Truffula trees be protected or will it merely revive the Thneed trade?

We will have to wait and see...

But, perhaps, just perhaps, you and I can be the Lorax? Perhaps this time we can succeed in convincing our neighbours that we can live with less luxury? Perhaps we can stop what the Lorax could not.

Review: TB