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Author & Illustrators

Rob Sears Books

By the authors of The Biggest Footprint, winner of the James Cropper Wainwright Prize for Children’s Nature Writing 2022.

Slow down and see the big picture in this warm, witty and beautifully illustrated book for children and adults inviting us to wonder at our precious time on Earth.

You are invited to travel through the ages in the company of a 4,000-year-old yew tree named Eunice, whose perspective on time is very different from our own. Her wisdom will get you pondering: why is humanity in such a rush lately? Why does time fly and sometimes drag? And how can the actions of one generation change things for those who follow?

Guiding you on a journey from the extremely long past to the head-spinning present and the unshaped future, Eunice reminds us that in a world that seems to be travelling at warp speed, taking your time is sometimes the best thing you can do. After all, some of the most important things in life can’t be sped up.

A Tree is a Time Machine is an antidote to uncertain times, and the perfect gift for anyone who has ever felt like they just want the world to slow down.

The Biggest Footprint is a one-of-a-kind, creative book. It tells the story of humans (all eight billion of us) and how our choices, both in the past and present, are affecting our planet. It also explores how we can all help to put it right and continue to do more to look after our world.

The Biggest Footprint begins when a mega human is created from all eight billion people being put into the ‘smooshing machine’. As a mega human, we take a journey and learn about our footprint choices on the world. We also put other items through the smooshing machine to compare their sizes, examples of which include all the tigers in the world, all the food and food waste in the world, as well as all fossil fuels.

The book does celebrate the good efforts that we are making – trying to eat less meat, recycling and conservation efforts as examples, but it poses the question throughout each page: could we be doing more?

The book has been written in an informal and fun way that is bound to engage readers of different age groups. The facts and statistics included are incredibly interesting and where there is more complex vocabulary used, the book provides teaching opportunities and discussions that would work well in geography lessons.

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