Tim Bird - 'The Great North Wood'

I enjoyed Tim Bird's new book 'The Great North Wood'. It's just come out from Avery Hill. It's all in colour with a nice pallette of pink, blue and brown. It's about the big wood that once stood in South London between Croydon and Deptford.

The book uses a fox as a framing device, the fox wanders around in the modern remains of the wood, and looks into the past when the wood was much bigger and more magical. The book has some good stories from the wood about gypsies who lived there and told fortunes, and bandits and outlaws who hid in the woods and robbed passers by. It talks about how the names of the places came from the woods that once stood there like Gipsy Hill, Honor Oak and Norwood.

I liked the drawing a lot and especially the use of colour. Here's Tim's website.