Reports from the forest

In short

An old Mother Oak who believes that humans are important for the future of the planet, works her magic to bring six city kids to the forest. There, the young people learn how important forests are to the future of humans, and how to interact respectfully with all more-than-human beings. The Warriors of Mighty Beech intend to thwart her plan. Mighty Beech lives along a hiking trail where he is wasting away due to the compacting of his roots. He and his allies believe that humans should disappear from this planet as quickly as possible. 

Anaïs Berck is represented in the creation of this novel by a hornbeam from the Sonian Forest in Brussels (story), the humans An Mertens (text), Tina Horne (translation & fine-tuning), Peter Jacquemyn (drawings), Loes Jacobs (printing); and the algorithms from LibreOffice, Nubo cloud and the databases Wikipedia and Ecopedia.

First reactions from readers

‘Every chapter tastes like a wild strawberry, delicious! It melts on your tongue. And then you know there comes yet another one.’ SG

‘Your book really touched me. I read many books, where it’s also partly written from animal perspective, but I always thought the human is still too audible from that perspective. It felt too artificial. With your book I didn’t have the feeling at all. Thank you!’ JM

‘This book is an absolute wonder! I love it: the writing and presentation and drawings are all fantastic. My 4-year-old daughter loves it too, having the first chapters read out loud.’ SF

‘I read it in one go!’ KU

‘Since reading Reports from the Forest, I walk through the woods very differently, much more mindfully.’ JV

‘Reports from the Forest is a real hit: fascinating, informative and innovative.’ MM

‘It’s wonderful to get to know all these creatures and their habits.’ NV

Images of the book launch in Passaporta Bookshop Brussels

This edition has received the much appreciated support of the Flemish Government - Arts, nadine and the Passaporta Bookshop.