Martinez-Neal, Juana. Zonia’s Rain Forest. Candlewick Press, 2021.

In Zonia's Rain Forest, Juana Martinez-Neal's stunning use of line introduces a girl and the many animals whose home is threatened by deforestation and development.

In this double-page spread, Zonia greets an animal on her daily walk through the rain forest, land that is "her backyard and her front yard, her neighborhood and her playground" (front flap). The leaves from overhanging branches create a frame for the encounter, while stalks of foliage spring from the ground and sway alongside the long, fluffy tails of the animals (South American coatis, back matter). Zonia's long, straight hair spreads forward as her curved nose aligns with the coati's thin, pointed snout. On the recto, Martinez-Neal calls attention to the butterfly that carries Zonia through the forest by way of a thick black outline and the tint of the thin black veins of its wings.

Zonia and "her" coati bleed off the page but appear to be positioned on equal, level ground. They both belong in, and to, the forest. Regarding the relationship of people and animals, Clark writes, "[t]here exists a litany of inventive stories firmly grounded in reality which often generate improbable situations" (89). In this image, the coati may be Zonia's "favorite" among the group, but their friendship, proximity, and intimate tip-of-the-noses-touching "hello" is fantasy. Although she suggests the coati has a personality (as animals do), Martinez-Neal does not give it human traits or abilities. Because the animals are not anthropomorphized in this spread, the reader can see past the bit of "improbable" fantasy and chart Zonia's motivation to protect the rain forest for all who live within it.

Works Cited

Clark, H. Nichols B. “Here and Now, Then and There: Stories for Young Readers.” Myth, Magic, and Mystery, edited by Michael Patrick Hearn, et al., Roberts Rinehart Publishers, 1996, pp. 79-124.

Martinez-Neal, Juana. Zonia’s Rain Forest. Candlewick Press, 2021.