In the Beech Forest by Gary Crew

In the Beech Forest is written by Gary Crew and illustrated by Den Scheer. Gary Crew is a famous Australian author who predominantly writes and collaborates with illustrators for images within his books. This book is very recent and was published this year. This book is about a ordinary boy who wanders into a beech forest to look for adventure or to slay imaginary monster. The boys imagination wanders and develops a story about what may have taken place.

As the story is in the mind of the boy and a figure of his imagination he does not directly interact with any of the creatures or beasts he creates which seems to leave the story without any character to character conflicts or resolutions. The story plot seems to focus on one conflict based on character vs environment in which the further the boy gets into the forest the more and more dangerous it seems. The boy decides to overcome his imaginations and gears and in the end he finds ancient runes and resolves his fears by leaving the forest.

This book utilises a lot of words in comparison to most picturebooks which are important in driving the story forward as the images are based on imagination and are therefore surreal and disjointed at times from the words. Gary Crew includes a wide variety of adjective, verb group, and noun group combinations which keep the reader intrigued such as "blood read earth, beasts unconquered, wonderously renewed, grey shadows lengthened, trees leaned and reared threatening"

The book is told from a third person narration style with the author being intrusive on all thoughts of the main character. At times the writing also shifts to a first person statement as we hear what the boy was saying out loud to himself such as "That is the pulse of the mighty earth. I have found its mighty heart."

The images are in coloured in black and white and towards the end start to introduce a lot of red as the boy discovers the beating heart of the forest. The use of these colours suggests fear, loneliness, darkness, coldness and nightmares. The use of colours gave the the reader a sense of the feelings and emotions that the boy was feeling as he wandered around the forest.