“Jack and Boo’s Wild Wood lays down a lovely list of things for children to do in the real world of nature. I urge you to read it and then let them enact it for themselves. Only then will we have future generations who will love wildlife enough to protect it.”
Chris Packham – Naturalist and BBC broadcaster.
To celebrate the launch of Beachy Book’s second children’s book, Jack and Boo’s Wild Wood, Island author and award winning publishers, Philip and Eleanor Bell, are inviting families and children (or anybody who loves a walk) to a free wild walk and scavenger hunt in Borthwood Copse, one of the Island’s most ancient areas of woodland, owned and managed by The National Trust.
The event takes place on Sunday 23rd October, between 12 and 3pm, at Borthwood Copse, Alverstone Road, Apse Heath, off the A3056 Newport-Sandown road. There is a small Parish Council carpark near on the Alverstone road. Also No. 8 bus stop outside the Borthwood entrance.
The family walk is about a mile long, can be done at your own pace and is suitable for young children accompanied by adults. The paths around the wood may be muddy so bring wellies if you need them. Philip will be at the main entrance to Borthwood (on Alverstone road) to meet you and give you a wild wood scavenger hunt and map, which, if completed and returned to him, offers £1 off the purchase price of a signed and personalised copy of Jack and Boo’s Wild Wood. Beachy Books will be donating £1 from the sale of each book to help The National Trust’s Borthwood Copse conservation work.
Jack and Boo’s Wild Wood contains photographs taken in Borthwood Copse and the adventure was inspired by the authors’ own family walks with their two children. Philip Bell says, “Our children can be reluctant walkers at times, but when we get them out on a woodland walk they have a real adventure full of imagination, nature spotting and scavenging. And in autumn, when the leaves are turning golden and red, the wood looks gorgeous.”
Following on from their first award winning children’s book, Jack and Boo’s Wild Wood is set in an ancient wild wood. Under canopy of trees they forage like squirrels from spring to autumn, for new shoots and summer fruit, windfall seeds and fallen leaves. Climbing logs, jumping roots, avoiding woodland trolls, spotting butterflies, listening to cuckoos and woodpeckers, counting ducks and even finding a secret swing deep in the woods. The book is both part story and part nature spotter guide, with real photographs taken in some of the Island’s most beautiful woods, including Borthwood Copse.
Jack and Boo’s Wild Wood is priced at £5.99 (ISBN: 9780956298010) and can be ordered direct from the publisher, or purchased at Waterstone’s in Newport, Made On The IOW or ordered via Amazon and other online retailers and bookshops.