gilda_elise

Naturalist Hope Ryden braved all seasons and weather over a four-year period to document the comings and goings of a pair of wild beavers (Lily and the Inspector General and their offspring). Her patience and fortitude paid off: She won acceptance and was able to move among the animals she describes as "gnomes who work magic and transform their surroundings during the dark of night."

Author of twenty-three books on wild animals, Ryden first became interested in beavers in 1974 when she wrote a cover story for the New York Times Magazine suggesting the beaver be named New York State’s animal. Within six months, the New York State legislature voted in favor.

Dr Jane Goodall wrote in a preface to this book: "Reading this book was, for me, like journeying into a fascinating new world: I am enriched.”

Can you fall in love with a beaver family? Most definitely, yes. The author did, and so did I. Ryden has a lively writing style, so it would be hard not to be drawn into the lives of these amazing animals.

The beavers all come to life in this engaging and heartwarming book. There’s the Inspector General, the largest of the beavers, and father to all the kits that follow. And Lily, sweet Lily, mother to the five sets of kits born during Ryden’s four years studying the beavers on Lily Pond.

It turns out that there’s so much more to beavers than just automatons who build dams. They’re master builders, who learn to build, and, more amazingly, to repair under all different situations, whether it’s repairing a dam or expanding their lodge. And depending on their situation, to eat a wide variety of plants.

But being about animals, there’s also the tragedy of death. It came at the end, the passing affecting all the other beavers, changing Lily Pond forever. It affected me, too. And stays with me still.