Planning Permaculture Children's Stories - The Forgotten Food Forest

Planning pre-6th grade (i.e. early than 11 year olds) curriculum. I don't want to make a manual: young children need experiences & stories (not worksheets & abstraction). To that end, I've been planned a children's Permaculture story book series. The first of which I'm working on with Asayo Janice Kubo as illustrator called, The Forgotten Food Forest. I'm sketching it out right now, talking with Asayo & Geoff Lawton & seeing what it will take to finish this asap.



Onward and upward!

MP

SO FAR: we are going to base it off of this food forest in Morocco that Geoff Lawton found years ago: 2,000 year old Food Forest



I'm 9 pages in to sketching it out for Asayo Janice Kubo, the illustrator & fellow Lawton OPDC '14 alum.

This might be the next Kickstarter (simply because I can easily fit it in before summer & the next Permaculture Student volume.

Can't wait!!

MP

That's awesome Matt!

I think this kind of educational opportunity is what is needed in our world of corporate disinformation masquerading as knowledge. If more children (aka our future) are affected by nature's beauty and bounty at an early age, we might actually make it through this horrible transition with an intact society.

Thirteen Thank You's

Ok, so I've been doing research to make things as plausible & historically-based as possible.

It will be in Morocco for sure. It will be modeled after Lawton's discovery. It will be a story about two brothers who are saved by a food forest and discover a pride of barbary lions in the forest. I don't want to put a date on the book's time period. It would predate the present certainly, but I wouldn't want to make it Roman times; that's too far back. Barbary lions are extinct in the wild but were used in the coliseums
to fight gladiators and were even bred by kings having many captive lions tracing their blood lines to the Moroccan royal lions.

I'm prepping for this to be our next Kickstarter and have it start shortly after my current one ends (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mattpowers/the-permaculture-student-1)

I'm exciting to finish my part and see what Asayo Janice Kubo does with it! She's an amazing artist!



MP

Ok script is written (2 drafts and several edits with a few hours of research put in).

Asayo Janice Kubo is sketching out examples of the brothers, Ali & Mehdi, right now

Can't wait to share!

MP

Asayo has some sketches that are simply amazing! We should home some polished examples ready soon!







Are you ready for a children's permaculture storybook? Historical fiction? Could be used in schools? YES!!



MP

Asayo is fitting in sketches during her lunch. We hope to have more sketches to share in the coming months.

For now you can LIKE our Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Forgotten-Food-Forest/514274578715667

Matt : How about an up-date ? Big AL

This is such an awesome idea! One of my absolute favorite books to read with my daughter is Weslandia by Paul Fleischman for similar reasons. While it's not based on a historical food forest, it's a GREAT intro into permaculture principles. I'd love to know if he did that intentionally or not!

Bumped for update?

I'm wondering whether "the forgotten food forest" might be a good theme to become a series. This one could be "The Forgotten Oasis" and you could also do future books along the same lines, but in different climates.

I've seen forgotten farms in New England with stone-lined springs, rambling roses, grapes, apples and crab-apples, herbs etc. Chestnuts less present since the big blight, but we're working on that. A pre-present version could easily include chestnuts, hickory, a squirrel might figure in the initial wandering off the trail.

English hedgerows preserve a ton of diversity, centuries old, and are classic places for small children to explore.

A forgotten Inca garden again could have running springs that have been stone-channelled from a forgotten source, stone terraces, sub-alpine tropical crops like quinoa, maize, medicinals, grumpy llamas and an unforgettable moment with serpent, puma, condor.


Heck, the process of trying to discover these places could be an epic family trip, if you are up for taking the Kickstarter to that level.

-Erica

p.s. If you don't want to make the trip, I will totally go in your place. and send back video and ready-to-use line art.