Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

“In Zonia’s rain forest, green and full of life, she visits old friends and meets new ones.
‘Good morning!’ she says one, two, three, four times.”
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Meet Zonia. She “lives with those she loves in the rain forest, where it is always green and full of life.” The rain forest calls to her every morning, and we readers follow along as she explores, following a vivid blue butterfly all the way. This is the latest picture book from Juana Martinez-Neal, Zonia’s Rain Forest (Candlewick), publishing this week. Juana visits 7-Imp today to share some images from her trip to the Amazon rain forest and to give us a peek into the creation of these illustrations.

In a publicity statement for this book, Martinez-Neal writes that she “traveled on roads, paths, and rivers to the Peruvian Amazon to share a different area of Peru in my constant, purposeful attempt to break the stereotype of Peru in my work.” She adds:

“I visited the high jungle and the low jungle. There were birds calling, insects chirping, rivers flowing. I was surrounded by life. As I traveled, I was welcomed into villages of several Amazonian communities, including those of the Asháninka people. I got a glimpse of their daily lives — lives that I would love to see continuing with little imposed change. And this is the reason I created Zonia’s Rain Forest. The story is about a girl and her community resisting and existing, where the Indigenous people are not saved but take charge, in control of their own life and destiny.”

The book, released in both a Spanish and English edition, includes an Asháninka translation in the backmatter (translated by Arlynder Sett Gaspar Paulino). The backmatter also includes a note about the Asháninka People (the largest Indigenous nation living in the Peruvian Amazon) and some facts about the Amazon.

Zonia’s journey through the rain forest is filled with joy and curiosity, as she visits the furry, scaly, spotted (and otherwise) creatures that live there. There isn’t an inch of the rain forest she doesn’t know — that is, until she sees a field of trees that have been cut down. She stops abruptly and, frightened, runs home. When Zonia tells her mother that the forest needs help, Mama tells her daughter: “It is speaking to you.” Backmatter provides more details about the Amazon and its threats (illegal logging, farming, mining, and oil and gas extraction).

Let’s turn it over now to Juana, who shares some of her photos from her trip to the Amazon, as well as some images of the making of this book, a rallying cry for environmental activism, particularly in Indigenous nations.

I thank Juana for visiting.

 

Juana’s Trip Photos:

 



 


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Making Zonia …

 


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Juana: “As I was working on sketches for Zonia, I learned about a very small group of women from Chazuta making paper from banana bark. The texture and color were perfect for the book, and more importantly, the paper was handmade by women from the Amazon with the Amazon itself. I knew this was the paper to use for the illustrations of Zonia, and through friends and technology, I found a way to get the paper from Chazuta to my studio. Drawn on paper fashioned from banana bark by the hands of the people
of the Amazon, the book became a living thing. …”

 



 

Printmaking

 


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A final spread from the book: “On her way home, Zonia comes across something she has not seen before. Frightened, she runs the rest of the way home.”
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Spanish edition
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English edition
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ZONIA’S RAIN FOREST. Copyright © 2021 by Juana Martinez-Neal. Illustrations reproduced by permission of the publisher, Candlewick Press, Somerville, MA. All other images reproduced by permission of Juana Martinez-Neal.