In the Beech Forest

In the Beech Forest ticks all the boxes for encouraging both male and female teenagers (aged about fifteen years) to read.

While illustrated books for older readers usually appeal to young males, In the Beech Forest is illustrated by Den Scheer, a young woman in her teens. Ten to fifteen-year-old males would also relate to In the Beech Forest as its theme is a young man's perilous rite of passage in search of self. The youth involved is actually fearful of the monstrous creatures he faces in his computer games and must overcome this fear to become a man-a growth process which is admirably represented visually with all the irony that only a female teenage illustrator could create: not only does the boy triumph, he realises his triumph by imagining the battle between a monstrous male force and a diminutive female force which the female wins!

In Real Boys Voices clinical psychologist William Pollack allows his young male clients to speak for themselves, quoting 17-year-old Tom regarding his rite of passage to manhood: ... people should realise what we go through, what we feel, what problems are important and how they can be fixed. (Pollack, W. 2000. Real Boys Voices. Scribe, Melbourne. p. 377). Every teenage boy could therefore relate to In The Beech Forest which uses both visual images and accessible print text to address these very feelings.

About the Author

Dr Gary Crew, author, has won the Australian Children's Book of the Year four times. Gary has published over forty novels and illustrated books and is Associate Professor, Creative Writing, at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland.

Den Scheer grew up on an isolated farm in Western Australia. There wasn't much in the way of TV or gaming so she kept herself amused by reading, writing and drawing. At eighteen, she has won many awards for her illustrations, including the Young Australian Art Award and the Australian Scholarship Group Art Award.