Together, a Forest, Roz MacLean
Together, a Forest, Roz MacLean
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Together, a Forest
Drawing Connections Between Nature's Diversity and Our Own

Author: Roz MacLean

Narrator: Melinda Sewak

Unabridged: 19 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/04/2025

Synopsis

Together, a Forest: Drawing Connections Between Nature's Diversity and Our Own features sound design and special effects to enhance your listening enjoyment. Listen out for the sounds of bird calling and the splashes of the winding river!

Explore a forest with a curious classroom in this breathtaking new audiobook by the author of the beloved More Than Words, and experience the essential beauty of diversity in humanity and nature.

Joy and her peers are eager to visit a nearby forest for a class trip. But Joy's excitement quickly turns into anxiety when she is asked to choose one thing in the area for a school assignment.

Seeing her classmates connecting with the natural environment, Joy discovers how each of their choices reflect the ways they relate to and interact with the world.

Together, a Forest begins as an exciting journey into nature and blossoms into a meditation on how our unique personalities and ways of being help create a more vibrant and beautiful world. The forest reveals that everyone—including those of us with disabilities and neurodivergence—belong to nature. There is no one right way for a mind, body, or person to be.

With accessible social-emotional and STEM themes, this audiobook highlights the importance of interdependence, inclusion and celebrating diversity in our communities.

A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt & Company.

About Roz MacLean

Roz MacLean is an award-winning Canadian illustrator and children's writer. She especially loves making art about themes that are important to her, like exploring emotions and diverse ways of being in the world. She is passionate about education, inclusion, and the arts.

About Melinda Sewak

Melinda Sewak (she/her/hers) is an Emmy-nominated story chaser, whose rich, lyrical, and welcoming voice brings life to an ever-growing cast of characters. Her facility with language is deeply immersive and has added dimension to 25+ audiobooks, ranging from children’s fiction to YA to romantic comedy to fantasy. Melinda has been fine-tuning her ability to convey the truth and the comedy in every story by drawing on her own diverse life experiences as a Black, queer creator – having grown up as a first-generation Haitian-American, graduated with a BA in Theater Studies from Yale University, toured as a jazz a cappella singer, worked as a firefighter and rescuer, conducted and published critical care and emergency medicine research, attended medical school, coached as a certified personal trainer, served as a Shakespeare teaching artist, worked in IT as a data and business analyst – and professionally acting on stage and screen. While varied, the through-line has always been a love for people and storytelling – and an always-present desire, evident in the rhythm and curiosity that exude from her voice, to discover, to share, and to connect with story and listener alike.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Lois on December 04, 2024

This is a high-quality audiobook production with a full soundtrack attached that is narrated by Melinda Sewak. The music plays underneath the narrators voice. The music is primarily spa music, nature sounds with light instrumental music added. It creates an atmosphere of wonder for the story. This fo......more

Goodreads review by Fabina on March 26, 2025

"Together, a Forest", starts with a class field trip to the forest where our ecosystem is made up of living and nonliving things. The assignment is to sketch an object from there as an art project. The children are as diverse as nature; Sophia can feel the electricity of lichens like the ones that p......more

Goodreads review by Rebecca on October 25, 2024

Together in a Forest is a charming children’s book about a class exploring the wonders of the forest. Each child finds something unique in nature, showing how important diversity is in both the natural world and our communities. This delightful narrative also offers a glimpse into fascinating forest......more

Goodreads review by Kaitlyn on January 18, 2025

I listened to the audiobook version. There is music playing under the narrators voice which is very soothing and calming and when they talk about bird sounds, there are actual bird sounds present that helps bring the story to life. I do think this book would be better as a picture book to gain a chi......more

Goodreads review by Jared on April 07, 2025

Through the text and illustrations, this book teaches about different elements of an ecosystem, how they work together, and how each element fills different roles. What is especially neat about this title is that woven throughout this teaching about nature there are also connections made to how a cl......more

Quotes

Praise for More Than Words

"MacLean’s gouache, pencil crayon, acrylic ink, and digital illustrations depict a class diverse in skin tone, ethnicity, religion, and ability. We see children who use wheelchairs, a child with a hearing impairment, a service dog, and a student who uses oxygen tubing . . . A warmly inclusive look at the many ways we communicate with one another." —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"With affirming and informative language, this book has a place in every collection supporting and celebrating the many methods of communication children and adults are using today. Highly recommended." —School Library Journal

"[H]eartwarming and insightful . . . More Than Words has the potential to spark meaningful conversations among parents, teachers, and caregivers, helping children develop a broader perspective on communication. It has the potential to inspire meaningful discussions about acceptance, understanding, and the beauty of expressing oneself in various ways." —Waterloo Region Record

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