West Coast wild rainforest

Deborah Hodge

Book - 2024

"Along the Pacific west coast, stretching from Alaska down to Northern California, is an ancient and beautiful rainforest where everything is connected. Full of towering ancient trees and new seedlings, the forest provides shelter and food for many animals. The trees are home to Douglas squirrels, which help to spread the conifer cones that will sprout into new trees, Western screech-owls and chestnut-backed chickadees. The giant conifers shelter the streams where baby salmon hatch in the spring, and where adult salmon return to spawn. Bears, wolves and eagles feast on the fish, and the leftovers of their meals fertilize the plants and trees in a cycle where the trees protect the salmon and the salmon feed the trees. Banana slugs that ...slide along the forest floor, helping to further break down decaying plants and animals. And new life is lifted up by nursery logs, where seedlings sprout and grow strong on the decaying fallen trees. Deborah Hodge's text shows the interconnectedness of this amazing ecosystem, while Karen Reczuch's lavish watercolors show the rainforest teeming with life and the shades of green that can only come from more than ten feet of rain a year."--

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Subjects
Genres
Juvenile works
Illustrated works
Published
Toronto ; Berkeley [California] : Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press 2024.
Language
English
Main Author
Deborah Hodge (author)
Other Authors
Karen Reczuch (illustrator)
Physical Description
1 volume (unpaged) : color illustrations ; 29 cm
Issued also in electronic formats
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN
9781773068398
Contents unavailable.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

A lushly illustrated introduction to the ecosystem of the American Northwest's coastal rainforest. Focusing on the role of spawning salmon as a keystone species--they're eventually a food source for the trees as well as the local insects, bears, wolves, and bald eagles--Hodge lays out in measured tones a web of cycles and interrelationships, from Douglas squirrels that help to spread conifer seeds by gnawing on cones, to wolves that make their dens in hollows beneath gnarled roots, to fallen trees that become "nursery logs" for new seedlings. In keeping with the titular theme, an Asian-presenting family appearing at the beginning and the end are the only human intrusions in Reczuch's cool, green forest scenes; mostly she offers close-up portraits of characteristic flora and fauna depicted in fine, accurate detail amid misty glimpses of sturdy trunks, leafy glades, and clear, rocky streams. The afterword offers a nod to the Indigenous stewards and other conservationists who have led the fight in British Columbia against indiscriminate logging, but the beauty of these old-growth forests and the ecosystem that sustains them comes through clearly enough to make a compelling argument for preserving them. Solemn, respectful, and informative, with art worth lingering over. (resource lists) (Informational picture book. 6-8) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.