The Wall and the Wild

Young Ana grows a garden, a perfect, tidy garden, the complete opposite of the adjacent wild into which she throws her excess seeds. Between the wild and her bourgeoning garden she creates a boundary against the disorder beyond. It’s not long before her garden with its wonderful scented flowers, fruit and vegetables and trees, is home to birds and insects aplenty, as well as being much admired by all the people who stop and look at it.

Ana however, is displeased by the unfamiliar plants invading her pristine territory; these along with more rejected seeds she throws over into the wild. She also builds up her boundary wall. This tossing of unwanted plant material into the wild continues and at the same time her own area becomes seriously depleted. Despite this Ana keeps adding to her barrier until it has become an enormous wall.

Time to stop and take stock of things, thinks Ana looking at her own side of the wall. Then however, she decides to look beyond so up the wall she climbs. The sight that meets her eyes is truly amazing: her discarded seeds have grown apace helping to contribute to an unexpectedly beautiful wildlife community – the wilderness – that Ana and her friends can tend, in tandem with her garden.

Christina Dendy’s fable and Katie Rewse’s vibrant scenes show so well how important biodiversity is, as well as making the case for leaving a part of our own gardens where nature is allowed to take its course. Observant readers will notice that the protagonist in the story is wearing hearing aids.