

Trees don’t grow on sandbars . . . but a boy from India grew a forest. What can one person do in the face of global environmental degradation? Indian Jadav Payeng has proven that each and every one of us can make a difference. As a boy, he began planting trees on a sandbank in the state of Assam. Nobody believed that he would succeed in doing so. But since 1979, a forest the size of Central Park has emerged, offering a home to countless animals and plants. It was not until 2007 that a photographer accidentally discovered the forest and made Payeng known to the world beyond India. Rina Singh has sensitively retraced the story of young Jadav. In Ishita Jain’s picture book debut as illustrator, readers feel immersed in the spectacular habitat whose existence borders on a miracle come true.
Rina Singh is an internationally published children’s author and has written fifteen books for children including A Forest of Stories, which has been translated in several languages. She has written an award-winning biography on the Inuit artist, Pitseolak Ashoona. Her most recent publications are Holi Colors, Diwali: Festival of Lights and Nearly Nonsense, and Guru Nanak. Her upcoming book A Meeting in the Sky is a World War II story. Holi Colors got starred reviews from Kirkus and Publisher’s Weekly. Rina has done readings and workshops in schools, libraries, and literary festivals across Canada, including TD Children’s Book Week in 2012 and 2018. In 2014, she also presented at the Asian Festival of Children’s Content in Singapore and Reading for the Love of it in Toronto (2015). She is an Ontario Certified Teacher and has taught visual arts, drama, and creative writing in Toronto for 25 years. She is also a tdsbCREATES mentor artist for Spoken Word. She lives in a blue house in Toronto. Surrounded by birds, pesky squirrels, a rabbit and goldfish in an outdoor pond, she dreams of writing more stories for children. She also loves elephants but to meet them she has to travel to far away places.
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