Beaver Girl - Cassie Premo Steele

\nPraise for Beaver Girl\n \n \n\n \nClever, soulful, and charming!\n \n-Ben Goldfarb\n \nThis book is the antidote we need in the face of climate change!\n \n-Mary Alice Monroe\n \nBeaver Girl is the novel 'beaver believers' have been waiting for.\n \n-Alison Zak\n \nThis is a book that I could easily read for fun or assign in one of the science classes I teach as an example of communicating science through story.\n \n-Emily Fairfax\n \nVivid and endearing!\n \n-Midge Raymond\n \nBoth sobering and hopeful, Beaver Girl is a story for our times.\n \n-Frances Backhouse\n \nThere is no better time for this beautiful book.\n \n-Kate Hopper\n \nA gripping read that explores survival and care.\n \n-Julie R. Enszer\n \nThis book is essential for our time.\n \n-Amanda K. Jaros\n \n \n\n \n \n\n \nThe main character of Beaver Girl is Livia, a 19-year-old girl who has been through a pandemic and climate collapse. She wakes in her house to wildfires that are encroaching upon her neighborhood, and she goes into a nearby forest, Congaree National Park, to try to escape the wildfires. There she befriends a beaver family. The reader learns about beavers as a keystone species for our environment. For example, most of Texas and New Mexico, which we think of as desert areas now, were lush green forests before the Europeans got rid of all the beavers for the fur trade. Beavers create these wetland areas, and even after an individual family has moved on those beaver ponds become part of the water table, which can help us during times of drought in later years. The novel has elements of a morality tale that shows what we have done to help bring about climate disaster. It is also set in a post-apocalyptic time and shows what beavers and humans could do together to restore faith and strength and a sense of family and community. \n