As a wildlife filmmaker, I have been lucky to work several times in the Amazon rainforest. Some visitors, understandably, find it a difficult place — hot, wild, filled with biting, stinging creatures. But I fell in love with its vastness: its giant trees, immense rivers, spectacular storms and vibrant diversity. Even now, in the middle of a cold English winter, I can (and do) travel in my mind back to that steamy heat and see huge, blue butterflies, noisy howler monkeys and rare river dolphins. Although, like most travellers, I’m driven half mad by the whine of the mosquitoes!

So, when I heard about Eva Ibbotson​’s Journey to the River Sea, the story of an orphan girl, Maia, who is sent to live in the Amazon with distant relatives, I had to read it. Even though it was being touted as a page-turning adventure with delicious details, like an opera house in a jungle city with monkeys on the roof, and rumours of extinct Giant Sloths living in the forest, I was afraid it might be a book in which the characters saw the worst in the rainforest, not the best. 

Then, in the first chapter, I came across these words:

Those who think of the Amazon as a Green Hell bring only their own fears and prejudices to this amazing land. For whether a place is a heaven or a hell rests in yourself, and those who go with courage and an open mind may find themselves in Paradise.

I relaxed, certain now that this book would become an old friend. 

In the book, Ibbotson sums up the essence of the best nature writing. Her protagonist Maia approaches her new life in this strange, distant place with an open, curious mind — the right kind of mind to appreciate nature. She doesn’t judge the rainforest because it is different from her home. She doesn’t take on the prejudices she hears about the people who live there. The author and her lead character treat the Amazon and its inhabitants with respect. That single word, perhaps more than anything, is our best hope of finding a way to live in harmony with nature.