The Forest Keeper: The True Story of Jadav Payeng - Rina Singh

AUTHOR: Rina Singh

ILLUSTRATOR: Ishita Jain

GENRE: Children's Picture Book, Environment.

RATING: 4.25 stars.

An inspiring true story of a man who created and nurtured a forest all alone, that too on a sandbar!

Jadav Payeng was a young tribal boy in 1979 when the river that passed by his island village in North-East India flooded the banks and left many snakes dead, having perished due to lack of shady green cover. Payeng realised that trees could solve the issue but no one was ready to take charge. When the forest department gave him a bag of seedlings saying, ‘Go plant them yourself”, he actually did so. He started planting those seedlings on an abandoned sandbar. After thirty years, the resulting dense forest covers about 1360 acres, an area larger than the Central Park of New York. No one even knew of his efforts until a wildlife photographer stumbled upon his story in 2009. Since then, he has been acclaimed and is now known as the forest man of India.

As a children’s picture book, this story delivers mostly well. Payeng’s story is inspiring in many ways. Other than showing how hard work does bear fruit, the tale also highlights the importance of every single individual in creating a better world. In a world where forest fires and flooding have become quite common, we can’t keep looking the government to implement climate-safe regulations. The future lies in all our hands, and Payeng’s story shows that every small step too can make a vast difference.

Even beyond the above, the book will be greatly useful in showing how biomes can spring naturally. Payeng’s planting efforts have resulted in his forest being populated by tigers, rhinos, elephants and many other wild creatures, all of whom simply moved into the area because of the tree cover. Nature can remedy itself, if only humans would stop butchering it mercilessly.

The book is aimed at readers aged 4 to 12, grades 1 to 6. The vocabulary level is manageable. There are a few difficult words, but none that can’t be explained easily. There are a few nature-related terms such as silt and glacier.

The illustrations are a perfect match for the natural topic. Painted in watercolours using earthy hues, the greens and browns and yellows serve well to support the natural feel of the story. I just wish there were some actual photographs too (both of the man and of his handiwork) included at the end. Seeing illustrations helps but is not as impactful as the photograph of a lush green forest.

Overall, definitely a great story for classroom discussions as well as for little environmental-friendly readers who will see that they aren’t too small to take big steps in saving this planet, a little at a time.

My thanks to North South Books and NetGalley for the DRC of “The Forest Keeper– The True Story of Jadav Payeng”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

If you want to know more about Payeng’s hard work and its results, please read this article.