The Forest Keeper: The True Story of Jadav Payeng
by Rina Singh (Author) Ishita Jain (Illustrator)
Trees don’t grow on sandbars . . . but a boy from India grew a forest.
What can one person do in the face of global environmental degradation? Indian Jadav Payeng has proven that each and every one of us can make a difference.
As a boy, he began planting trees on a sandbank in the state of Assam. Nobody believed that he would succeed in doing so. But since 1979, a forest the size of Central Park has emerged, offering a home to countless animals and plants. It was not until 2007 that a photographer accidentally discovered the forest and made Payeng known to the world beyond India.
Rina Singh has sensitively retraced the story of young Jadav. In Ishita Jain's picture book debut as illustrator, readers feel immersed in the spectacular habitat whose existence borders on a miracle come true.
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Singh inspires with this biography of Jadav Payeng (b. 1959), who since 1979 has planted and sustained a forest on a river-adjacent sandbar in northeast India. As a youth, Payeng witnesses the death of hundreds of water snakes after they wash ashore and, without shade, bake beneath the sun: "Jadav, a tribal boy, raced to the edge of his river island and stood speechless." Unable to interest elders or the forest department in reforestation efforts, the determined 16-year-old begins solo daily outings to plant bamboo. Cause-and-effect text and layered crayon- and wash-like textures chart the course of Payeng's work tracking diversifying plant life as well as the arrival of first birds and then fauna. The presence of elephants brings problems to a nearby village, but Payeng's savvy stewardship generates the balanced ecosystem the pachyderms require--a happy ending for a still-developing story about "the Forest Man of India." Notes offer context about the figure and the forest. Ages 5-9. (Apr.)
Copyright 2023 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission.Review quotes
JNF037040 - Juvenile Nonfiction | Science & Nature | Trees & Forests
