Friday July 9^th saw Brighton’s Balfour Infants School in for a treat – not only did they get a visit from their newly-elected local Green Party MP Caroline Lucas, but also Tamarind illustrator Karin Littlewood! The Year 1 and 2 pupils listened cross-legged to a great speech from Caroline about biodiversity. She explained that if you imagined the world as an apple, only a quarter of it would be land, and the rest water… and only a half of that bit of land was habitable! So you can imagine how important it is to protect that relative slither of land we live on.

After Caroline spoke, Karin gave a brilliant reading of The Day the Rains Fell. The book explores the idea of how the watering holes appeared in the savannah desert and celebrates the diversity of the animals living in the plains. One by one, each animal lends its colours to Thandi’s beaded necklace until she has a rainbow assortment of colours! After the reading the children decorated their own beads with all the patterns of their favourite animals.

The children enjoyed the arts and crafts no end, but the event had a serious message. Caroline Lucas said “…young people need to learn about the earth’s fragile state.  We’ve taken the biosphere for granted for too long. The global climate talks last year in Copenhagen failed to tackle climate change in any meaningful way so time is running out.”

Caroline also praised the book, saying “The Day the Rains Fell is the best book I’ve seen for younger children – and for parents who want their children to enjoy and learn at the same time – about why humanity and every species on the planet is threatened.”

More of Tamarind’s ‘green’ books: