Jeannie Baker Books

Window is another wonderful, elegantly illustrated and thought-provoking story by Jeannie Baker. Completely wordless, the lives of both a family and the world around them are played out over the course of a lifetime through one window in the house. Window plays like a history of the modern world and the mass concrete expansion that has transformed many parts of the world over the past century. As we watch the world evolve through this one window, we can’t help but question and debate the effects of overpopulation, humans’ increasing encroachment into countryside habitats and our wider effects on the environment as a whole.

Baker’s postscript to this beautiful, wordless picture book states how she, “…set out to tell the complicated issue of how we are changing the environment without even noticing it. This change is hard to see from day to day but it is nevertheless happening and happening fast.” Each of the dozen or so double pages of the book show the view from the same bedroom window as the years go by and the boy who lives there grows up into a man. Baker’s unusual collage images are made using a range of materials, giving the pictures an intriguing appeal. The countryside becomes a village, a town and finally a city — there are multiple talking points on every page as humans impact the landscape and its wildlife. A great book to discuss the environment and pore over with any primary school children. Baker explains, “By opening a window in our minds, by understanding how change takes place and by changing the way we personally affect the environment, we can make a difference.”