What Goes on Inside a Beaver Pond?

Title: What Goes on Inside a Beaver Pond?
Author: Becky Cushing Gop
Major Themes: Beavers, Wildlife
Synopsis: Many beautiful, colorful illustrations follow a young beaver through her first year of independence. 

For science this week, we did a nature study. We read What Goes on Inside a Beaver Pond? and studied the pictures. That is everyone’s favorite way to do science: Cuddle up beside Mom on the couch and look at pictures together.

The book begins with a beaver family becoming active in the spring. The mother has more babies, the one-year-olds learn more about life in the pond, and the two-year-old female takes off, searching for a new home. She goes down the river, checking out one place after another. Some places that look nice have beavers living there already and others are too close to humans. She keeps looking for a place that is secluded where no beavers live, and where there is plenty of food and water. 

Once she finally finds the perfect home, the young beaver starts rebuilding an old abandoned beaver dam. Soon, a young male beaver comes across her new home, and they work together to build the dam and a lodge. They accumulate a supply of winter food and survive a predator attack, and in the spring prepare to start a new family.

Each two-page spread in What Goes on Inside a Beaver Pond? shows a different aspect of the life of a beaver or the areas the young beaver traveled through. Other wildlife that shares the habitat appears in boxes scattered over the page or in the sidebar. The illustrations are lovely color paintings. This is a beautiful book that children can spend a lot of time studying, as it is so full of detail.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from NetGalley, and these are my honest thoughts about it.

WARNING: One sentence on page 21: Snapping turtles have existed since before dinosaurs.

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