A lyrical book about the adventure of life, The Forest is also a magnificent visual work, both painterly and a technical feat of paper engineering. Here, sensory experience and the textures of the material world are rendered through die-cuts, embossing, cutouts, and a single gatefold. A beautifully considered work.
Riccardo Bozzi is a journalist and has worked for the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera since 1990. He is the author of The World Belongs to You, illustrated by Olimpia Zagnoli (Templar/Candlewick, 2013).
Violeta Lópiz is a Berlin-based Spanish illustrator. She has illustrated several books including Amigos do Peito (Bruaa, 2014) and Les Poings sur les Iles (Editions du Rouergue, 2011), which received the CJ Picture Book Award 2011 in the New Books category. El Cultural, the supplement of El Mundo, considers her one of the top ten names of contemporary Spanish illustration.
Valerio Vidali is an Italian illustrator of children's books. His book Jemmy Button (Templar/Candlewick, 2013), co-authored with Jennifer Uman, was selected by the New York Times as one of the 10 Best Illustrated Books of 2013.
"As a book / object / artwork, this is just NUTS. And beautiful."
– Simon Armstrong, Book Buyer at Tate Modern
"Using the forest as a metaphor for life, this book will engage ecologically-conscious readers in a visual and sensory exploration of the human story. From the book's velum skin jacket to the last blank pages, we are invited to dwell with the universal mystery of life. Defying any particular dogmatic approach, its contents embrace all. For those willing to explore the book with the wonder of a child, each page turn will have you not only going deeper in the forest, but also witnessing the passage of time. Bozzi's writing captures an openness and a sense of mystery which, when paired with the book's actual physicality, may have each forest explorer come to see their lives anew, renewed, and renewable."
– Lori Horbas, Boswell Book Company, Milwaukee, WI