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Jes

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Beaverland: How One Weird Rodent Made America

by Leila Philip

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Jes said:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

" Picked up this book because beavers are my favorite animal and I wanted to learn more about them. Unfortunately as other reviewers pointed out, it is not quite what it says on the tin. The book is structured around moments from the author's life, whi Picked up this book because beavers are my favorite animal and I wanted to learn more about them. Unfortunately as other reviewers pointed out, it is not quite what it says on the tin. The book is structured around moments from the author's life, which perhaps could work as a memoir, but this too felt disjointed. The author would begin to describe something she was observing about the beavers, only to interrupt this about her mother's failing health, then return straight back to the beavers, or something about how her dog likes to roll in animal corpses. Or describing beavers swimming then throw a sentence mid paragraph about how American Indian trappers would stab their eyes out before killing them. There was sort of a disconnected sense of her trying to play it off as a dark joke almost, but without the rapport needed to do so, and this combined with her very personal-experience focused interactions with the experts she interviews, leads to a feeling of lack of care or personal expertise. (In one instance we read about her tromping off into the woods with some scientists doing some very unique work. What we hear about is the misery of mud and mosquitos and brush in the face. Then, later, with other scientists, the narrative of them getting excited about something else that they go off to look at, but our author deciding not to follow or inquire further or engage, but instead just looking at the beaver dam and then later eating a flat egg salad sandwich. No! I want to know what the scientists are excited about!) It all together has the effect of reading a book report written for an assignment.

A few tidbits that were interesting: (In general I admire the breadth that the author strives for)
-Discussion on what is a natural river, really? We like them to be neat and straight and contained, but they move and change, spread into deltas and dams and streams, and how important this is
-Beavers don't necessarily build tall dams, but a series of dams, or wide dams. We can learn lots about safe dam building from them
-Different lodges might be made out of different things, like grass or moss. Beaver families local to some areas have methods they they seem to repeat, sustain, or pass down
-There has not been a lot of study done on beavers, the animals, themselves, but more so their effects on the environment
-The brief history shared of "The Beaver Bundle" as a collection of objects wrapped in a hide for material-based story telling about lessons passed down through the Blackfeet people. (This though was certainly a place where I was left longing for more depth in the description and knowledge being shared;it would have been nice to have heard from the Blackfoot themselves via interview, etc.) ...more "

Apr 29, 2026 09:21PM · see review