When a newborn baby boy is lost in a distant forest his mother is distraught. Villagers search for him, but without much hope for a happy ending. Motherly love endures though, and the baby’s mother doesn’t give up until she finds him safe, well and being protected by a beautiful panda bear. An unbreakable and enduring bond between human and bear has been created. When visitors arrive in the village nine years later, the now-grown boy must decide if he will repay the panda’s kindness or seek riches and adventure.
Exploring our connection with nature through lyrical prose and achingly beautiful illustrations, The Panda’s Child is a book that will enchant readers of all ages. The story has a haunting fable-like quality to it, whilst the accomplished paintings capture a bereft mother’s anguish, and seem to peer straight into the souls of the wild animals depicted.
As can be expected from any collaboration from Morris and Fisher, this is an ode to the natural world with an important message about species conservation.
A beautiful gift book with the resonance of a legend and a passion for the wild world.
In a faraway forest a baby is lost and found, protected by a she-panda.
Nine years later another baby, the panda's child, is in great danger, and only a boy and the spirit of the forest can save him.
This magical, powerful story by Jackie Morris, co-creator of The Lost Words, and award-winning illustrator Cathy Fisher, is a book for all ages to treasure, exploring our most vital connection with wild nature.
Powerful environmental and species conservation themes are developed through story and illustration.
Watch author Jackie Morris read an excerpt from The Panda's Child
'A panda protects a baby who has been separated from his mother, and several years later that same child rescues the panda's baby, who has been stolen by a band of men who want to present it to Emperor Alexander. Morris' powerful reminder to respect the wild is brought to life by Fisher's gorgeous artwork, which makes the beauty of the natural world leap off the page. Simply stunning.' - The Bookseller
Author
About Jackie Morris
Jackie Morris is a bestselling writer and artist. Her almost uncanny ability to draw and paint living landscapes and wildlife began around the age of six when she watched her father draw a lapwing and wanted to learn the same magic. Born in Birmingham, she grew up in Evesham, but has lived for a long time in Wales, in “a small cottage held together by spiders’ webs”.
As a writer and illustrator she has many books to her name; of which The Lost Words, in collaboration with Robert Macfarlane, is the best known. For Otter-Barry Books she has written, among others, the three much-loved Mrs Noah books, The Jackie Morris Book of Classic Nursery Rhymes and Something About a Bear.
Her internationally bestselling picture books for Frances Lincoln are Ted Hughes’ How the Whale Became; Mariana and the Merchild; The Snow Leopard; Can You See a Little Bear?; The Snow Whale; Lord of the Forest; as well as those she has both written and illustrated, The Seal Children; The Time of the Lion; Little One We Knew You’d Come; Tell Me a Dragon; The Cat and the Fiddle: A Treasury of Nursery Rhymes; The Ice Bear. She has also written and illustrated a critically acclaimed novel for older children, East of the Sun, West of the Moon.
In 2019 she won the Kate Greenaway Medal for her illustration of The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane. In her acceptance speech, Jackie Morris, said: “The times ahead are challenging. It seems to me that artists, writers, musicians have one job at the moment – to help to tell the truth about what is happening to this small and fragile world we inhabit, to re-engage with the natural world, to inspire and to imagine better ways to live. Because there is no Planet B and we are at a turning point. And because in order to make anything happen it first needs to be imagined. And as writers and illustrators for children we grow the readers and thinkers of the future.
“I’m learning so much as I watch our young people call politicians to account. Together we can make a change. And we must. While politicians nod and pretend to listen to Greta Thunberg, declare Climate Emergencies, then continue with ‘business as usual’ finding money always for bombs and seldom for books we need to stand beside these children and hold our deceitful leaders to account.”
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