A family canoe trip into the Border Country lakes of northern Minnesota and western Ontario is vividly depicted with woodblocks, sketches and prose. Each page presents a new aspect of the Canoe Country’s human and natural history, blended with a typical summer day of paddling, portaging, and camping.
From the author's sketchbook notes in Leave Only Ripples...
Dawn comes early in July — the sun rises while we still sleep. Like crayons in a box, sleeping bags, snug in our little tent. In a few minutes we will get up, take a quick dip in the lake and start our day.
People have been traveling through this wild country for a long time — sometimes alone, sometimes in groups. This time we travel as a family. Virginia paddles in the bow and notices things the rest of us miss. Roger paddles in the stern, charts our course and shares nuggets of natural history. Sketchbook in hand, I wield a pen rather than a paddle, noting the magic and beauty of plants and animals, sounds and sights, thoughts and ideas.
By words and sketches we remember. We once again hear a winter wren, smell the balsam fir, taste that big sweet raspberry. My sketchbook lets us return to the Canoe Country whenever we wish.
From the story text of Leave Only Ripples...
Tuck away the breakfast dishes, take down the tent, and stow your gear once again in sturdy canvas packs. You can smell the misty freshness of a new day — another day to explore sparkling lakes and towering forests, to paddle winding creeks and open waters, to hike across portage trails laced with feathermoss and wintergreen. Each day your canoe carries you deeper into this wild land.
Winner of the 2006 Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award for Children's Literature.
This beautiful book was made with a deep love of the wild lands it depicts. It belongs alongside The Man Who Planted Trees and all our other favorite "children's" books that move us with their simple beauty.
Leave Only Ripples also has been awarded a place on The John Burroughs List of Nature Books for Young Readers. This literary award is named in honor of the Hudson river naturalist and essayist. A pioneer of nature study, John Burroughs (1837-1921) was one of America s most widely read authors. A hundred years ago, his nature essays for children were published in special school editions and caused nature study to blossom in classrooms all over America. In recognizing his efforts to awaken interest in young naturalists, the Association has selected books that present perceptive and artistic accounts of direct experiences in the world of nature. The books contain rewarding observations that come to naturalist authors and illustrators after patient hours of personal observation.
