On the Other Side of the Forest

The premise is not new, but the family structure, the cooperative community, and the quality of the precisely inked and colored art combine for a riveting read. Fear of the unknown, neighborliness, and an attentive dog are just the start of conversational possibilities.

Canadian writer Robert (The Shadow Elephant) sets her fable in a rural village whose inhabitants are elegantly clothed rabbits, their trousers sewn to allow space for fluffy tails. The young narrator, Arthur, lives with his baker father, who is preoccupied with the impenetrable forest that surrounds their village. Long interested in what’s on the other side, he dismisses superstition ("People say that wolves live in the forest, and ogres, and giant badgers") and forms a plan, ceaselessly baking bread and asking for payment in stones, which the villages bring eagerly, in order to erect a tower. Arthur helps: "It’s very tiring. But a magnificent idea takes a lot of work." When a crisis derails the project, the village unites to find a solution. Storytelling by Robert and restrained, classically drafted spreads by DuBois (The Amazing Collection of Joey Cornell) proceed step by step, in documentary fashion, offering suspense and drama along the way. An epigraph from artist Ai Weiwei underscores the value of smart collective action-a potentially dry theory that Robert and DuBois bring to life with absorbing storytelling.

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