In 2024, in an impressive double whammy, The Tree and the River by Aaron Becker won both the Yoto Carnegie Medal for Illustration and the Yoto Carnegie Shadowers’ Choice Medal for Illustration. It is a visual narrative that covers the long timespan of an imaginary civilisation, depicted in immense detail.

On Becker’s website the book is described as: ‘A spectacular time-lapse portrait of humankind – and our impact on the natural world – from a Caldecott Honor-winning master of the wordless form. In an alternate past – or possible future – a mighty tree stands on the banks of a winding river, bearing silent witness to the flow of time and change.’

Becker describes the tree (seen above right) as the book’s ‘main character’, as its life cycle covers the entire rise and fall of the city. It ends up as an apparently dead stump, but it still has one final roll of the die: an acorn that falls into the water, floats downstream and grows on a new bend in the river, implying a repetition of the whole cycle.

Interestingly, the top spread shows a similar blasted tree stump upstream, visible on the left-hand page, suggesting evidence of an earlier civilisation.

The book progress through a series of full-bleed images, where we see the natural world gradually being transformed from a small farmstead to a middle-sized town to a vast bustling city. The river is harnessed by a water mill, logs are harvested, forts and fences are built. The architecture becomes increasingly elaborate, industrialisation develops and artificial light is introduced.

For each spread, Becker made a cardboard 3D model, which he covered in plaster and painted. He then added small buildings to the model and photographed it. Next he drew over the photograph and later transferred the drawing onto his computer for the addition of colour and extra details.

This was a complex painstaking process, but one that enabled him to create a world that feels ‘real’ because the perspectives work.

Becker’s colour palette changes as the book progresses. Initially the natural world is depicted in soft greens, browns and blues. Later the industrial images, misted by smoke and pollution, are shown in a darker slate grey. Towards the end of the book, when artificial light has arrived, warmer orange hues are used, suggesting both the glow of artificial light and the autumnal phase of the civilisation itself.

By this stage the original rural landscape is almost totally obscured, until a vast flood destroys the entire area and, through the awesome power of nature, reveals the bare contours of the land on which the settlement was built.

Only the ‘bones’ of the city are left and the original tree has been reduced to a stump. 

For most of the book the point of view is fixed. The structure only changes near the end, with a close-up of the broken stump and a page that zooms in onto a single branch with a few remaining acorns, one of which generates a new tree.

This moment of regeneration is marked by sparser images, more white space and three bordered panels.

The cover image (below) cleverly conveys the concept of change over centuries, with the pristine natural landscape above ground and the more complex urban landscape of the future reflected in the river below.

The book can be read in a number of ways. For instance as a historical record of an imaginary civilisation; as a cautionary tale about the destruction of the natural world; or as a comment on human nature and society. It allows readers, both child and adult, to immerse themselves and invent their own stories around the varied scenarios shown within the pictures.

As well as being a fun exercise in world-building, The Tree and the River offers a real opportunity to consider our own world, giving the book intellectual weight and enduring appeal. It is a worthy winner of both those prestigious Yoto Carnegie medals.