The Flower by John Light, illustrated by Lisa Evans

The illustrations in this minimal-text picture book are very much in the Tim Burton tradition – muted pastel shades of brown and grey, vacant looking expressions on wide, round faces, and a distinctly dystopian eeriness fills its hauntingly mesmerising pages. “Brigg lived in a small room in a big city” begins the story - and so we follow the resigned drudgery of Brigg's soul-less, colour-less urban life - with which anyone who has ever lived or worked in London will immediately identify. One day Brigg steals a forbidden book from the library where he works, and learns about flowers - something he has never seen in the barren metropolis he calls home. Then, seeing the same shapes and colours on a packet of seeds in a shop window, he transforms his dreary accommodation by growing a beautiful plant. But Brigg's delight turns to anguish when the plant is sucked away by the automatic cleaning system in his apartment. All is not lost however, as the plant continues to thrive in a dust heap outside the city, and hope for a more colourful future is restored.

A simple story with a strong message against apathy, reinforcing the notion that it only takes one person to make a difference – a worthy philosophy indeed in the face of current climatological concerns.