Wonderful Wilderness: Children's Picture Book & Mini Field Guide
This project entails the creation of an interactive children’s picture book in response to children becoming alienated from nature. The book presents a narrative of a little girl who gets lost in the Vredefort Dome, accompanied by an illustrated species checklist in the form of a mini field guide. This is intended to involve real-life aspects of nature in an adventurous story. The project thus explores how a visual narrative in the form of a picture book can be used to pique curiosity towards nature in young children. It draws upon theories of children’s picture books, narratology and ecocriticism to present nature in a wild, exciting and fascinating way.
The visual strategy is to combine a children’s book illustration style with more realistic scientific illustrations to supplement the fictional narrative with recognisable and accurate illustrations of chosen species, so that they can be identified in the real-life environment. The Dome environment is depicted as wilderness – “nature in a state uncontaminated by civilisation” – to draw upon associations of freedom, trial and excitement, to pique curiosity toward nature in young readers.
Top: Wild Olive
Bottom: Sweet Thorn Acacia & placeholder branches
Above Left: Mini illustrated field guide
Above Right: Khethu in the Dome picture book
Animals & birds found in the Vredefort Dome featured in the field guide and throughout the picture book
Left to right: Picture book cover. Field guide front cover. Field guide back cover.
Below: Field guide spreads
Below: Picture book endpaper
