Into the Forest

What’s it about?

The story.

One morning a boy wakes to a loud noise in the night and finds his father gone, with no one saying why. Sent to take a cake to his poorly grandmother, he ignores his mother's warning and chooses the quicker, forbidden path through the forest. Along the way he meets a boy trying to sell a cow, a hungry golden-haired girl and two lost children scattering crumbs, and he pulls on a red coat left hanging on a branch. Anthony Browne renders the ordinary world in colour and the shadowy forest in charcoal greys, filling the trees with half-hidden fairy-tale references that reward close looking. Beneath the Red Riding Hood framing lies a tender exploration of a small child's anxiety about a parent's unexplained absence, resolved with a warm and hopeful reunion. A modern classic from a former Children's Laureate, this is a picture book that grows richer with every reading.