I was talking about my love of reading books with my brother Mark and asked him what his favorite book was. He said, “Chip the Dam Builder in 4th grade…it changed my life!” He even stated he’d tried to find it and could not… so I found a copy and sent it to him and then I found my own copy via inter-library loan.
It is a great story about how the ecology is so interrelated and humans have an impact on it even when they don’t realize it. There are all kinds of animals in the forest, some are predators, and some get eaten, but they make it better for everyone but making the deer faster, and baby beavers stronger.
The author does not sugar coat the fact that some live and some die. I love how he demonstrates how the environment is so intertwined. Loggers came into this area and clear-cut and then there were floods. Then beaver moved in and suddenly the floods diminished because the streams had small ponds all along.
I devoured this book and can see why Mark liked it so much.
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