Wonder and the World : A Childhood Among the Species

What kind of world do we want to bequeath to our children? What planet, what future do we want to pass on to them? In his latest book, Cyril Christo poses the most fundamental of all questions.

What kind of world do we want to bequeath to our children? What planet, what future do we want to pass on to them? In his latest book, Cyril Christo poses the most fundamental of all questions.

What kind of world do we want to bequeath to our children? What planet, what future do we want to pass on to them? In his latest book, Cyril Christo poses the most fundamental of all questions. Together with his wife Marie Wilkinson and their son Lysander, Christo has been seeking out the wonders of this world for more than 40 years and across all continents. During their travels to the Inuit or the first peoples of Africa, they come into contact with communities who seem to have everything that modern, technological society has lost: time, family and an almost inexhaustible kindness towards strangers.

The photographers present the wonder of unspoiled nature in their book, captured in powerful duo-tone images that provide a fascinating glimpse into the beauty of life. With a fighting yet sensitive spirit, they share how their experiences and encounters have guided their son’s development and how nature can serve as a teacher to all children with their irrepressible yearning for wonder. The world’s greatest classroom, nature as the school of life, is threatened as never before by climate change and the continuous loss of habitat. Christo and Wilkinson regard their book as a manifesto and a warning, because “without wonder we are lost.”