Animal Rescue

Patrick George
(Patrick George)

I have always admired PatrickGeorge’s clever use of acetate in their books (see earlier reviews here and here). Their latest title, Animal Rescue, is based on the same principle, this time encouraging young readers to become ‘rescue heroes’. Each double spread shows an animal in an unnatural habitat. Flipping the acetate to the other side then shows the animal in its natural habitat.

These visual tricks might seem simple but they are nonetheless very effective. There is no narrative to the book, allowing children to make up their own minds about what they are seeing and what they might perceive to be right and wrong. It is a clever introduction to animal welfare and protection. It is not preachy, just states the (visual) facts. This easiness of access to the concept of animal welfare will be quite fascinating for readers because of its interactivity, but very informative also, and hopefully will induce more questions. In fact, its simplicity is so conducive to discussion, I think Animal Rescue would work equally well with older children.

The book is endorsed by the Born Free Foundation, and 50 pence from the sale of each book will go to the Foundation.

Here is a sneek peak at the book:

‘Animal Rescue’ by Patrick George from PatrickGeorge on Vimeo.

I was very interested to find out how the partnership between PatrickGeorge and Born Free had to coem to life and Ann Scott, PatrickGeorge’s publisher, was kind enough to give me a little background information about the book:

We have wanted to publish a book about animals for a while, a book which teaches young children respect for animals, and the acetate page seemed the ideal device to do that. Our challenge was to introduce issues of animal welfare to small children in a non-threatening way. Of course, like our other books, we wanted this book to be fun and playful too but without detracting from the serious underlying message. It is a wordless book so that the parent/carer/teacher can input what is appropriate for that child but the question at the end “Which animals would you rescue?” invites further consideration. This book deliberately only deals with animal welfare (as opposed to climate change and environmental concerns) which is a more approachable topic for our young target audience.

We wanted to reinforce our message by donating some profits of the book to an animal welfare charity and Born Free Foundation was a perfect fit: Born Free play an important role in rescuing animals. Alongside their conservation, education and rehabilitation work, they identify individual animals in need and rescue them. Their message of keeping wildlife in the wild clearly relates to our message. In my research, I saw that they work with corporate partners and have an online shop so decided to approach them to see if they would be interested in selling our book online in return for a donation of 50p of the profit of each book sale. We were delighted that they accepted our proposal. In return they agreed to let us use their logo on our cover and also agreed to endorsing the book (quote from Will Travers, OBE on the back which says: “We can only imagine what it is like to be a tiger, an elephant, a crocodile or a turtle. But we can understand why we need to rescue wild animals in need and protect them. That is what makes us human. This book should be the start of every child’s journey towards a more compassionate future.” ).

Thank you very much Ann, and well done on such a lovely book.

Buy Animal Rescue