This book is very dark but thinks it has to be to give the right message on how important it is to look after the environment around us. It's an amazing picture book, very mature in subject matter, a book that you'll need to revisit again and again and ponder endlessly. They represent the dangers of unchecked development and the importance of protecting our natural world. While the text is self-consciously elliptical, one thing is clear: the blame lies with ‘Others’ who ‘came one day’ from outside, the ‘varmints’ (a variant, we are told, of the word vermin), with THEM.

Varmints: Part One - Helen Ward - picture book, environment Varmints: Part One - Helen Ward - picture book, environment

There are those who love the hum of bees, the whisper of the wind, the wilderness - and then others arrive, with their tall buildings that "scratched the sky where birds once sang.And, as with everything Jóhannson has composed, it holds space for both abyssal melancholy and a paper hope bridge above it, achieving a tender, if tenuous, balance over the dark. Each pupil was supported in learning a selection of Indian dance moves which were then pieced together to form a whole class performance.

Varmints - Helen Ward - Google Books Varmints - Helen Ward - Google Books

Peace and quiet are the most important things in the world but the darkness of the buildings cast a shadow over these sacred things. Adapted and directed by Marc Craste, Varmints is a 24-minute film based on the award-winning book of the same name – written by Helen Ward and illustrated by Marc Craste – that tells the story of a lonely varmint, living in an idyllic world that is suddenly destroyed by the arrival of a grey, high rise city. Children will also dissect the flowers left behind, identifying and labelling the various parts and explaining their various roles in reproduction and pollination. Helen Ward trained as an illustrator at Brighton School of Art, under the direction of well-known children's illustrators such as Raymond Briggs, Justin Todd, Chris McEwan and John Vernon Lord.The idea that life is becoming over run with buildings, noises, and all kinds of extra "STUFF" is a concern of mine. Can someone find the time and space to stop, think and plant the seeds of change before it’s too late. Yet it contains the same sort of subtle leitmotifs and atmospheric ambitions that Jóhannson achieves in any of his better-known compositions. As the book progresses, and more industrialisation and skyscrapers are built, the imagery gets darker and darker.

Varmints - Teaching Ideas

This can mean they are in power and have taken over the environment but as soon as there is hope with one bunny there is always light on the character and the badgers disappear. Very nicely animated short film that works completely without language and only works properly with the music of Johann Johannsson. I couldn't actually interest any children in this book, but most of the adults I shared it with, thanked me for sharing this precious jewel that I discovered at the library. Seuss’s ‘The Lorax’, although ‘Varmints’ has a more elegiac tone and deliberately slow-paced approach which allows viewers to experience the atmosphere of its beautiful and imposing settings. It's also the type of book I would have absolutely loved as a small child (I love it now, too, of course) - at five, six years of age, The Dark Crystal was my favourite movie and it was a dark, menacing tale with sinister creatures, death, violence and adventure.Here Ward's brief lament for the loss of nature's peace and quiet to rampant urbanization really gets tricked out by elaborate packaging, occasional translucent pages and Craste's hyper-atmospheric digital art. Striking, surreal illustrations and a haunting, evocative text tell a mysterious tale of a threatened natural world, and a hopeful new start. As a result, Varmints would make a great addition to a science class exploring environmental issues and would be an interesting addition to a dystopia unit.

Varmints by Helen Ward | Waterstones

I bought it from my kids school book fair, neither of them (7 and 5) were very interested in it even after I purchased it and read it to them at home, I guess I prefer for them to love cheerful, colorful books with unicorns and rainbows. We then dived in further and became the character in the book, by writing a diary from the character’s perspective. Problematic, highly charged language, considering the history of the demonisation of migrants and ‘foreigners’.A good many reviewers took against ‘Varmints’ due to what they saw as its clichéd, unoriginal subject matter but Craste has managed to breathe life into a potentially hackneyed story through the use of dialogue-free, symbolic imagery and a cast of intriguing, expressive but unidentifiable creatures. There was mention at the back of an adapted short film, directed by the book's illustrator, Marc Craste. A breathtaking and magical piece of work, that is wholly original and allows your imagination space to work. These warmed the hearts of those who cared to listen - until the others came to fill the sky with buildings and the air with a cacophony of noise.