Product Description
The Man Who Planted Trees
Author: Jean Giono • Illustrator: Harry Brockway
Format: Paperback
'A book for children from 8 to 80. I love the humanity of this story and how one man's efforts can change the future for so many. It's a real message of hope.' — Michael Morpurgo
Discover this beloved masterpiece of nature writing that is a hymn to creation and to the power of the individual to do their bit to change the world for the better.
In 1910, while hiking through the wild lavender in a wind-swept, desolate valley in Provence, a man comes across a shepherd called Elzéard Bouffier. Staying with him, he watches Elzéard sorting and then planting hundreds of acorns as he walks through the wilderness.
Ten years later, after surviving the First World War, he visits the shepherd again and sees the young forest he has created spreading slowly over the valley. Elzéard's solitary, silent work continues and the narrator returns year after year to see the miracle he is gradually creating: a verdant, green landscape that is a testament to one man's creative instinct.
A beautiful story of hope, survival and selflessness, The Man Who Planted Trees resonates as strongly with readers today as when it was first published.
Featuring an introduction from award-winning naturalist Richard Mabey, author of Nature Cure.
About the Author
Jean Giono was born in 1895 in Manosque, Provence, and lived there most of his life. He supported his family working as a bank clerk for eighteen years before his first two novels were published, thanks to the generosity of André Gide, to critical acclaim. He went on to write thirty novels, including The Horseman on the Roof, and numerous essays and stories. In 1953, the year in which he wrote The Man who Planted Trees, he was awarded the Prix Monégasque for his collective work. Jean Giono died in October 1970.
About the Illustrator
Harry Brockway was born in 1958 and studied sculpture at Kingston Art School and at the Royal Academy, where he learned engraving. He makes a living as a stonemason as well as a wood engraver.
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