pencil

★ 2022 BolognaRagazzi Award Amazing Bookshelf Selection
★ 2022 YES24 (Korea's largest online bookstore) "Recommended Books for Teens"
★ 2022 Kyobo Book Centre (Korea's largest bookstore) "Recommended Morning Reading Books for Middle School Students"
★ Shanghai International Children's Book Fair "New Dream" Global Children's Reading Promotion Program - Highly Voted Book

A picture book that speaks volumes without words, full of vitality and philosophy
From pencil to forest, and from forest to pencil, a recurring song of life
【Imported art paper book jacket · Beautiful "Painted Forest" collectible poster printed on the back】

★ Specially recommended by Yan Shunu, President of SCBWI-Taiwan (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, Taiwan Chapter)
★ The Chinese edition exclusively includes 3 "Paint Your Inner Forest" coloring pages, allowing you to create your own colorful forest through digital coloring or hand-drawn doodles!

This is a poignant wordless book, a story that unfolds with the shavings from a pencil being sharpened. The fallen wood chips transform into branches and leaves, quickly growing into an oak tree and forming a lush forest. When the wind blows, flocks of birds fly out from the trees, symbolizing the birth of countless lives. But then another gust of wind arrives, and the forest's destiny takes a different turn... Birds, having lost their homes, relentlessly pursue large trucks laden with felled trees. What will become of this devastated forest? Where will these transported trees be sold?

The large truck disappears behind the pursuing birds, entering a larger factory. What terrible things will happen in this factory? However, unlike the factory seen from the outside, the machines inside are not monstrous. Instead, the factory is clean and tidy, and the machines display beautiful structures, producing colorful products. As people curiously wonder what the factory is producing, it suddenly transforms into a colorful art studio, and a child bends down, walks out of the gallery with a pencil in hand, heading somewhere. What kind of world will the pencil in this child's hand now create?

▌Hidden meanings and mindsets in the imagery
For painters, pencils are essential tools. Therefore, to draw, one must have pencils, and pencils must be sharpened. Then, factory-made pencils must be purchased. As long as one has money, pencils can be easily bought. And then this pencil can be used to draw. This natural process, however, perplexes the author: Is there no awareness of the difference between sharpening a pencil and felling a tree? Is it just drawing an ordinary picture without a care?

In fact, while everyone encounters this fork in the road, not everyone can see it. For those who view wealth merely as money, perhaps it is invisible. Only when they recognize the true nature of money can they perhaps discover themselves standing in a felled forest.