Editorial review
Once Upon a Woodland Walk
By Casey Torch
With its jewel-toned forests and quietly concealed creatures, Casey Torch’s Once Upon a Woodland Walk turns a simple walk through the woods into an enchanting game of discovery.
Reviewed by CANREADS
With its jewel-toned forests and quietly concealed creatures, Casey Torch’s Once Upon a Woodland Walk turns a simple walk through the woods into an enchanting game of discovery.
Guided by the recurring phrase “Once upon a woodland walk,” young readers encounter a gentle doe and her fawn, playful raccoons, a dancing fox, industrious beavers, a soaring owl, and other animals found across the Canadian wilderness. The first-person perspective leaves the explorer unseen, allowing children to imagine themselves moving quietly among the trees. Each encounter builds toward the book’s central message: the natural world is a gift to observe, respect, and protect.
Torch’s luminous illustrations transform the woodland into a dreamlike world filled with colour, movement, and discoveries waiting between the trees. Slender trunks, patterned leaves, glowing skies, and richly layered forest floors frame each animal encounter. The shifting palette moves from rosy pinks and autumnal golds to deep greens and moonlit blues, creating a distinct mood for every scene. Because the explorer remains unseen, the artwork unfolds from the reader’s perspective, making each encounter feel immediate and immersive, capturing the quiet thrill of noticing wildlife in its natural habitat.
The alternating text and illustrated pages create a calm rhythm well suited to reading aloud. Although these creative choices generally complement the story’s gentle atmosphere, a few elements may affect its accessibility and educational value for young readers. Occasional forced rhymes disrupt the otherwise smooth cadence, while the stylized handwritten font may be difficult for emerging readers to decipher despite its large size and strong contrast. The explorer’s encounters with dangerous animals, including a grizzly bear, may also have benefited from brief, age-appropriate safety guidance. Even so, the repeated structure remains inviting for young listeners, and the story itself remains a wonderful exploration of Canadian animals and their environments.
The concluding “7 Principles of Leave No Trace” section extends the story’s environmental message through practical, child-friendly guidance about staying on trails, respecting wildlife, handling waste, and leaving natural objects where they belong. Combining an immersive nature story with accessible environmental lessons, Once Upon a Woodland Walk is an excellent resource for classrooms, libraries, families, and early outdoor-education programs. Its Leave No Trace guide transforms woodland wonder into practical stewardship, giving young readers simple ways to care for the places they explore.
Tender, immersive, and brimming with visual detail, Once Upon a Woodland Walk invites children to see the forest as a living work of art. Fans of Kallie George’s I Hear You, Forest and Deborah Hodge’s West Coast Wild at Low Tide who enjoyed learning about nature and animals will find much to adore here. Through one woodland walk, Torch transforms wonder into care for those species we must protect before it is too late.
—CANREADS BOOK REVIEW
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