The books.

Running Wild by Michael Morpurgo

For Will and his mother, going to Indonesia isn't just a holiday. It's an escape, a new start, a chance to put things behind them - things like the death of Will's father.

And to begin with, it seems to be just what they both needed. But then Oona, the elephant Will is riding on the beach, begins acting strangely, shying away from the sea. And that's when the tsunami

Slowly, slowly, slowly said the Sloth by Eric Carle

The sloth moves very slowly and takes life very gently; all the other animals in the rainforest want to know why he is so slow, so quiet, so boring and so lazy. The sloth's reply is a good and surprising one - quite a philosophical statement in favour of slowness!

Picture book

Pongo by Jesse Hogdson

Pongo is a masterful debut by talented illustrator and author Jesse Hodgson. Pongo traces his way from the rainforest floor to the treetops on his search for the bright orange sun. On the journey up the canopy he encounters different jungle creatures, all diverting his attention from the real thing--a curled up orange snake, an orange honey-soaked bee hive, even a baboon's bo

The Great Kapok Tree by Lynne Cherry

The Mayans believed that the Kapok tree was sacredOne day, a man exhausts himself trying to chop down a giant kapok tree. While he sleeps, the forest's residents, including a child from the Yanomamo tribe, whisper in his ear about the importance of trees and how "all living things depend on one another" . . . and it works. 

Journey to the River Sea by Eva Ibbotson

It is 1910 and Maia, tragically orphaned at thirteen, has been sent from England to start a new life with distant relatives in Manaus, hundreds of miles up the Amazon. She is accompanied by an eccentric and mysterious governess who has secret reasons of her own for making the journey. Both soon discover an exotic world bursting with new experiences in Journe

The Explorer by Katherine Rundell

Like a man-made magic wish the airplane began to rise.
The boy sitting in the cockpit gripped his seat and held his breath as the plane roared and climbed into the arms of the sky.

From his seat in the tiny aeroplane, Fred watches as the mysteries of the Amazon jungle pass by below him.

He has always dreamed of becoming an explorer, of making history and of reading h