Exquisite and fascinating illustrations beautifully capture the hopeful mood of this story about the power of dreaming. Living in a miserable grey world, an old man repeatedly dreams of colour and growth. Gradually his world begins to full up with colour, change and therefore hope.
Why this book is the choice of Simon Bartram, September 2010 Guest Editor: "In this wonderfully illustrated picture book an old man lives in the dark, grim middle of nowhere. He dreams of being surrounded by a beautiful forest and so, using bits and bobs of old scrap and rubbish, he begins to construct a makeshift tin forest of his very own. It isn't perfect but it's his. Then one day a small bird flies in and lands on one of the tin trees. This triggers a magical transformation of his world as his dreams slowly come true. This is a book in which the words and pictures compliment each other perfectly. Wayne Anderson's detailed illustrations jump off the page and the more you look, the more you see. Fantastic!"
There was once a wide wind-swept place, near to nowhere and close to forgotten...So begins this story that shows how, with a little love, even the most barren landscape can be a home to all sorts of life. Helen Ward, better known as one of our finest illustrators, has produced a poetic text, while Wayne Anderson has brought this fantastical world to life in his inimitable style.
Helen Ward trained as an illustrator at Brighton School of Art, under the direction of well-known children's illustrators such as Raymond Briggs, Justin Todd, Chris McEwan and John Vernon Lord. In 1985, her final year at Brighton, Helen was awarded the first Walker Prize for Children's Illustration.
Awards for Helen's work include The National Art Library Awards 1998 and 2001 for The Hare and the Tortoise and her version of Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows in the Templar Classic series, and The National Art Library Award for The Tin Forest. She was shortlisted for the prestigious Kate Greenaway Award in 2003 for The Cockerel and the Fox. This book also won the award in the children’s trade category at the British Book Design and Production Awards presented in November 2003.
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