Review. Anthony Browne 'Into the Forest'

    ‘Into the Forest’, the picture book by the illustrator Antony Browne, starts its plot from the cover about a boy entering the dark forest.  It gives an immediate association with the fear and negativity of the unknown world. The symbol of gloomy forest represents danger and awaiting of challenges.

 

Browne Anthony (2005). Into the Forest. Walker Book Lt., London

    The subject of the story narrates about the boy missing and finding his father trough the journey into the forest visiting not well grandmother by the mother’s advice.

     In the picture book are presented two dimensions of the framed time – the present and the future – in where the protagonist encaunts emotional experience.

    Opposites of black and colourful drawings make the visual surprise, especially in illustrations where the reader’s eye spots grim, but nicely made by fine the fine line black-white trees, that antagonizes the painted main character.

    The first illustration tells about awakening up of the boy in the storm at night and hides a visual ‘glue’ about fear, troubles and loss. The composition detail of the soldier with the gun on the right side might be the symbol of the family break or parental conflicts that touch child in the unexpected way.

    The next day shows that the father is missing and the mother cannot explain clearness of the situation. Colorfoul drawings made in small panels like ‘close ups’ indicates about the boy’s obsessive waiting. Glued notes ‘Come home Dad’ straightens persuasion of loss and highlights in bright colours sharpness of the anxiety of the child.

    The boy’s journey incorporates intertextuality from fairy tales about Hansel and Gretel, Jack, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood. Symbolic aggregation of known personages exhibits negative feelings (disappointment, despair, fear) and indicates about the contemporary families’ dysfunction as disputes, single-parents families, and divorce.  

    The most beautiful is visual scenes with the red coat and the beautifully sunny, smiling face of the grandmother. The boy put on the found read outfit to warm up himself and the red colour adds more power to show the boy’s fear.  Equally the pantagonist turns in to the Red Riding Hood without changing his gender affirming that the fear of loss in universal for all humans. Illustrations of the grandmother are really emotional and the rich colour pallet renders right the warm emotion of happiness.

    At the end of the story we know that boy again becomes the part of the united family again and he is surrounded by warmth and love.

    The picture book ‘Into the Forest’ represents the modern viewpoint and explains how dysfunctional problems in family might be interpreted by the individual perception emphasizing the importance of fostering classical values.