cover image Rain Forest

Rain Forest

Helen Cowcher. Farrar Straus Giroux, $16 (32pp) ISBN 978-0-374-36167-9

In strikingly vivid and arresting full-color paintings, Cowcher movingly presents a vision of impending ecological disaster. In the lush green rain forest, sloths, tapirs, anteaters, butterflies, toucans, macaws and monkeys live together. ``There is plenty of food and water for all the creatures, whether they make their home in the trees or on the ground.'' Then one day human beings and their machines begin to fell trees and destroy the animals' homes. With no trees to hold the soil, the rains come and wash it away. The simple tale ends on a note of chilling reality: the animals wonder ``how long the tall trees would be there to guard them.'' The spare text is never didactic, and although the ending is a bit abrupt, this is a well-designed introduction to the fragile balance of nature. Ages 3-up. (Nov.)