Wildlife Paper

8/6/2019 Wildlife Paper

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Lynne Cherryand Preservation

Tiffany S. Teofilo


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Feeling apologetic about advocating for change

will not make the world a better place,only action will.

-Adam Werbach, President of the Sierra Club

One voice exists in childrens literature that speaks above all others in regard to wildlife

preservation and conservation. Lynne Cherry has written nine picture books to date that cry out

for a resurgence of participatory democracy in the US. She pleas specifically to children because

according to an interview withPlay Magazine, Cherry knows that if she reaches a childs heart

and touches their imagination, she can lead them to empowerment and action (Wilde 2).

Several of Cherrys works focus on forest preservation specifically, including The Great Kapok

Tree, The Dragon and the Unicorn,and The Shamans Apprentice. Each of these picture books

uses a diverse and emotionally driven storyline to reach children and adults and let them know

that something can and should be done about the destruction of natural habitats around the globe.

Because of the passion put into these works, Cherry is successful in her mission to help educate

children of their ability to propogate change.

Calling Lynne Cherrys The Great Kapok Tree too issue oriented and claiming that it

would not interest people did not stop the texts publication on the twentieth anniversary of

Earth Day in 1990. The above statements were common rejection responses Cherry received

while attempting to put The Great Kapok Tree on the market, but after finally securing a

publisher in Orlando, Florida the work spawned an entire genre of childrens literature and


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climbed rapidly in popularity.

This picture book is the tale of a man who enters the Amazon rainforest and is ordered to

cut down a large kapok tree. The man falls asleep after growing weary while trying to chop at

the tree with an axe and is visited by many creatures who depend on the tree for survival. The

visitors include animals from a tiger to a sloth and then to a young Yansmamo Indian boy, and in

the end these desperate creatures convince the axe-bearer that too many living things rely on the

tree for him to cut it down.

Through her reinforcing illustrations and simple, romanticized language, Cherry uses this

work to explain how one element of an ecosystem can be integral to the survival of any number

of species, including man. In the beginning of the tale, when the man proceeds to Whack!

Whack! Whack! at the tree and then is lulled to sleep, a boa constrictor arrives and whispers

to the woodsman that the Kapok is a tree of miracles (Kapok4). A bee comes next and reveals

that all living things depend on one another, and later a tree frog states that many will be left

homeless if this tree is destroyed (Kapok5, 12). At this point of the tale, the reader has been

introduced to seven species of wildlife and their purpose in the small, but remarkably intricate

ecosystem of the kapok.

Throughout the book, twelve different animals are exposed and each one has a message

of what the kapok tree is needed for, including oxygen, an element that children should

understand is necessary for survival at a very early age, as the tree porcupine tells the woodsman,

If you cut down the forests, you will destroy that which gives us all life (Kapok16). On page

18 of the text, advice is given to the sleeping man and the reader as Cherrys narrator calls for

action: An anteater implores, What happens tomorrow depends on what you do today!

The Great Kapok Tree is successful in showing a child reader that anything can be


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accomplished by understanding all of the elements that make up any one thing and by believing

that even the smallest action, such as dropping an axe in the dust on the rainforest floor, can

make a difference. Cherry utilizes this text to set a standard for allowing children to feel capable

of action, but in her 1995 workThe Dragon and the Unicorn she not only moves the setting to a

North American redwood forest, bringing the tale closer to home, but also has a child take a

stand to save the natural habitat.

In The Dragon and the Unicorn, a unicorn, Allegra, and a dragon, Vallerio, run freely in

the Ardet Forest watching over all of the other wild creatures until one day King Orlando and his

people move into the redwood forest and begin to cut down trees. The men frighten Allegra and

Vallerio and they hide in the deepest regions of the woods, but they see the kindness of King

Orlandos daughter, Arianna and begin to trust her. The unicorn and dragon soon become

endangered when the men seek the magic in Allegras horn and fear that Vallerio will kill them,

and so they and Arianna hide together deep in the forest until Arianna feels she is ready to help

her father understand that the forest, the dragon, and the unicorn cannot be destroyed or the

beauty surrounding their new kingdom will be lost forever.

After Arianna confronts King Orlando, a decree is made to protect the forest and all of its

inhabitants; hence the unicorn and dragon are spared and free to continue protecting the Ardet

Forest until the present time (Dragon 29). On the final page of this text, the reader is shown

King Orlando and Arianna saddled on Vallerios back and riding through the thick, green forest

triumphantly. Through Arianna, the reader can see the importance of Ardet Forest and begin to

comprehend why the ancient forests of the Pacific Northwest needs help. It seems that the

emotive response to this work could begin as an understanding of why dragons and unicorns are

no longer easily found in the world.


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This concept lies in the viewpoint that children are permitted to believe while they are

young that fanciful creatures such as Allegra and Vallerio exist. If a child holds this idea, or the

hypothesis that these two species once roamed the earth true, he is likely to have hope that

Arianna succeeds in changing her fathers mind, and the child reader will then know that ancient

forests must be saved or creatures as common as white-tailed deer

may one day be as the dragon and unicorn. Lynne Cherry suggests in an article of her magazine

Natures Course that perhaps the magical qualities of the forests themselves created the

possibility of [dragons and unicorns].

Two important features of Cherrys The Dragon and the Unicorn are the use of borders

and the inclusion of medicinal fact. The borders in this text are stylized after medieval works,

but they showcase creatures that still roam the forests today, such as finches, beavers, and

rabbits. By seeing animals such as these on each page, a child is more likely to believe that

indeed, dragons and unicorns did exist and they still would if the forests were not plagued by the

greed of man. As for the medicinal fact, Allegra points out a yew tree to Arianna and explains,

Many, many years from now a disease will come to humans that only the bark of this tree can

cure (Dragon 21). After this, the unicorn explains to the girl that the different plants of the

forest could potentially cure any number of human diseases.

Drawing from this use of medicinal value as a plea to save the forest, Lynne Cherry along

with co-author Mark Plotkin wrote The Shamans Apprentice. This work is

focused on the Amazon rainforest much like The Great Kapok Tree, but the point of view is

exceedingly different. In this tale, a young Tirio Indian boy, Kamanya, is taken to the Shaman,

Nahtahlah when he is very sick and after he is better, Kamanya decides he wants to become

Shaman some day. This character seems to be around 8 or 9 years old, helping the young reader


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of this text see that age does not account for intelligence. Knowledge is gained with action and

attention, not age. As the story progresses, Kamanya learns about all the plants of the Amazon

and the healing powers they possess, but soon a man from another tribe falls ill and comes to

Nahtahlah for aid.

This man catches a disease from white men that cannot be cured by shamanic medicine,

and so he dies while the people of the Tirio village begin to fall under the same illness (Shaman

9). In reality, the reader will relate this to what he has heard on the news or learned in social

studies class at school. The problem of white man contaminating native tribes who are not

immune to the diseases children receive vaccinations for in the US is more common than ever,

and as the child reader begins to relate the story of the Shaman to the current news, he will begin

to understand the importance of the plants in the Amazon.

As Cherrys work continues, the Shaman cannot cure the illness, but soon white

missionaries arrive, label the disease Malaria, and cure the sickness with quinine (Shaman 11).

After this incident, the people of the tribe begin to lose faith in Nahtahlah, but Kamanya

continues to learn the Shamans wisdom. At this point the reader has become attached to the

close third narration focusing on Kamanya, and so the child is also interested in learning from

the Shaman.

Soon a white woman comes to the Amazon with a mission different from the other white

visitors, she wants to document the medicine of the Tirio tribe so that people around the world

can learn the Shamans knowledge. By adding this encounter to the storyline ofThe Shamans

Apprentice, Cherry and Plotkin allow for the Shamans redemption amongst his peoples. The

white woman writes a book documenting the plants Nahtahlah uses for curing different ills and

then notes that quinine is made from the bark of the cinchona tree, hence Shamanic medicine had


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cured the Tirios after all (Shaman 19). At this point, faith in Nahtahlah is restored and Kamanya

is officially named his apprentice.

The Shamans Apprentice is based on the true tale of Mark Plotkins research of the Tirio

tribe, but with Cherrys well articulated illustrations, the reader is allowed to see this work as a

beautiful appeal for understanding the immeasurable wealth in the Amazon rainforest. Not only

are there millions of species of animals hidden in the tall trees, but also there are cures for any

number of illnesses the child readers family or friends or the reader himself could be exposed to,

and by teaching this truth to the reader, Cherry and Plotkin reveal that the rainforest must be

spared not only for the beauty and intrigue, but also (and possibly most importantly) for the

health and well-being of all humanity.

The three aforementioned picture books are triumphant in their goal of educating children

to respect and cherish the wildlife of the forest. By introducing new animal species and

memorable human characters through tales of near destruction and loss of faith, Cherry gives her

reader a reason to work toward saving natural environments that are currently being erased.

Today, society in the United States relies heavily on the Internet as a means for global

communication and education. In response to the work Lynne Cherry and other childrens

literature figures have done as a means of teaching children about the rainforest, an Amazonian

explorer, Dan Beuttner, has created an interactive program where kids can view the day to day

treks among the trees in the Peruvian Amazon and vote on ethical issues such as whether or not it

is okay to purchase jaguar skins, macaw feathers, and other animal products.

The mission of Beuttners project is well founded, but troubling. The kids who

participate in this program include the students at the Cyber Village Academy in Minnesota, and

they are taking advantage of the lessons the program aims to teach. Unlike Cherrys books,


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which should be used not only to inspire change and educate, but also to encourage a love for

reading, this website is allowing children to gain the same knowledge without the hassle of

comprehension. One student at the Cyber Academy writes, You can read for hours and not

understand itI can learn more in a shorter time (Trivedi 16). Although this program is taking

the hassle out of learning about the importance of conservation, it was inspired by Cherrys

works. This website may be a loophole to get kids out of a reading assignment, but Suzanne

Rahn in her essay Green Worlds for Children stresses how much more a child takes from the

knowledge of a written work that he does from any other medium. Rahn claims that children in

the US raise more money for environmental programs than adults and that these children get the

idea of activism in environmental protection through literature (165). The internet project and

Rahns hypothesis work together to form a bond between a childs desire for ease in learning

new subjects and the idea that most children will retain information learned from a written

source longer than any other, therefore the need for Lynne Cherrys literature continues despite

technology. One aspect that has not been addressed, however, is educating the adult world about

the importance of wildlife conservation.

Grown-ups never understand anything

for themselves, and it is

tiresome for children

to be always and forever

explaining things to them.-Antoine de Saint-Exupery

The Little Prince

The three picture books discussed above display concern for forest conservation in a

language that children and adults can comprehend. The goal of these works (interesting the

reader in environmental activism) is accomplished through creative inclusion of diverse species,

characters any child could relate to, and a feeling of closeness to the environments where


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destruction must be prevented. Lynne Cherrys picture books are a successful medium for

promoting activism in children, but how, then, can adults also be persuaded to help in this

worthy cause? Cherry admits that one of her

main goals in writing her works is utilizing children as an agent of education for adults. In her

Play Magazine interview, Cherry is quoted as stating that while parents are not likely to sit

down and read a 350 page book they would sit down and read a 32 page childrens book (Wilde

3).

In her quest to educate children and their parents, Cherry remarks that the child is likely

to ask the parent, How could people have let this happen? and the response would generally

come out as, Because nobody did anything, therefore the child says, Lets do something, and

Cherry claims that this reaction of the child is what spurs action (Wilde 3). Lynne Cherrys The

Great Kapok Tree, The Dragon and the Unicorn, and The Shamans Apprentice work as tools

that allow children to believe that change is always a possibility and they are the ones who can

make the greatest difference. As Margaret Mead once said, Never doubt that a small group of

thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed it is the only thing that ever has

(Luedtke 5). This statement is more prevalent today than ever as we head to periods of shortages

in natural resources and our own laziness holds our children responsible for fixing our mistakes.

Works Cited

Critical:

Alan, Meredith. Under a Protected Forest Canopy. Imagine 6.1 (1998): 10, 12.

Cherry, Lynne. The Dragon and the Unicorn. Natures Course 4.4 (1996): 4.

Luedtke, Eric. Keeping the Planet Green: Environmental Preservation and the Power of

Youth. Imagine 6.1 (1998): 5.


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Rahn, Suzanne. Green Worlds for Children. The Lion and the Unicorn 19.2

(1995): 149-170.

Trivedi, Bijal. Virtual Expeditions Teach US Children About Amazon. National

Geographic News 17 Oct 2001: 15-18.

Wilde, Suzie. Interview with Lynne Cherry. Dec. 1992. Play Magazine. 05 July 2004

.

Creative:

Cherry, Lynne. The Dragon and the Unicorn. Orlando: Harcourt, 1995.

--. The Great Kapok Tree. Orlando: Harcourt, 1990.

-- and Mark Plotkin. The Shamans Apprentice. Orlando: Harcourt, 1998.

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