French / Switzerland
Changeons!
(Let’s change this!)
Giustozzi, Francesco
(text/illus.)
Genève: La Joie de lire, [2017]. – [36] p.
ISBN 978-2-88908-377-0
Nature | Ecology | City | Ecological crisis | Wordless book | Picture book
Reading age: 5+
White Ravens issue: 2018
How can one educate children about the fragile balance of nature, its ongoing harm, and the limits of growth? How to show the human species as the greatest disruption, the greatest threat to life on the planet? Francesco Giustozzi achieves these feats in his textless picture book. His expressive chalk drawings and collages form an environmental parable without being alarmist. He courageously focuses on the essential. In the story, a water-side habitation develops into a city whose steady growth, pollution, and exploitation of its environment gradually poison the water, the air, and the land. A filthy Moloch is created, causing the humans and animals to flee. Nature inconspicuously wins back its territory after that. Even without words, the author makes a compelling case for change and utopian thinking. Instead of passively complaining, he calls for self-empowerment. After all, the world, as the title suggests, is made to be changed, not to make do.