Cool Woods: A Trip Around the World's Boreal Forest

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University. She is the author of several books, including The
Mountain Is Moving: Japanese Women’s Lives, Kurlek and Margaret
Laurence: The Long Journey Home.

The boreal forest, which borders the Subarctic around the world, is
Earth’s last great forest wilderness. Without it we would lack wood,
water, and fresh air. Jane Drake and Ann Love are sisters who share a
keen interest in the environment. They call the boreal forest the
“lungs of the earth.”

Cool Woods looks at the ecology of the boreal forest across three
continents (North America, Europe, and Asia). The book’s attractive
and dramatic layout makes the scientific information easy to follow and
understand. The text is divided into six sections, with each section
representing an ecozone. A map is included to show where each zone is
located. There are double-page colour photographs of the Siberian Taiga
and of the illegal clear-cutting of timber going on there. Environmental
awareness is an important theme, and environmental hints, such as
“Leave the car at home and ride your bike or walk when possible,”
are slipped in, giving the photographs stronger impact. Boxed inserts
provide advice to young readers, such as repair and reuse equipment
instead of discarding it (a sketch shows two children repairing a
bicycle). The text is well planned and executed.

Andrew Kiss’s wildlife paintings make a perfect complement to the
text. Kiss, a self-taught painter born in Hungary, travels worldwide to
view his subjects in their natural habitat. His pencil sketches, such as
one of the endangered whooping crane and other birds from the Boreal
Plain, are beautifully rendered. Highly recommended.