Restoring Prairie, Woods, and Pond: How a Small Trail Can Make a Big Difference

Books for a Better Earth

by Laurie Lawlor

A small town with few resources comes together to restore nature and create a valuable resource for the entire community in this inspiring middle grade nonfiction book.

Restoring Prairie, Woods, and Pond is about activism at the community level—and tells how a small village transformed a city-owned dumping ground into a nature trail with three distinct ecosystems that runs from an elementary school to a public library and community center. Filled with beautiful photos the book will explain how this trail became a valuable outdoor classroom during covid, a STEM teaching center, a respite for people young and old, and a place for community engagement. Books for a Better Earth are designed to inspire children to become active, knowledgeable participants in caring for the planet they live on.

A Bank Street Best Children's Book of the Year
A Green Earth Book Award Recommended Title

Genres: Nonfiction, Activism

96 pages, Hardcover

Published April 25, 2023

About the author

Laurie Lawlor grew up in a family enamored with the theater. Along with her five brothers and sisters she spent summers in a summer stock repertory company in a small mountain town in Colorado that was run by their mother (costumer, cook, accountant, and resident psychiatrist) and their father (artistic director).

Reviews

[Rosemary · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an inspirational book of community and cooperation, learning and joy! Long, long ago, as the glaciers receded from southeastern Wisconsin, a prairie grew…attracting first the native Americans soon followed by immigrants who plowed the rich land for farms. In Eagle, a family struggled as tenant farmers, especially after their son went off to fight in the second world war. But he sent his paychecks home to his sister, Agnes, and she purchased this small parcel of land. Over the years invasive species like buckthorn crowded out the native plants, leaving a tangled mess. Then, in 2009, some people started looking at these acres that separated a school and a library, and decided to explore making a safe path for the children. The community came together and discovered together they could not only have a path, but a woods, a pond and a prairie! With hard work and lots of donations of time, energy, seeds, supplies and enthusiasm, Eagle, Wisconsin has saved part of the natural world for future generations to learn and enjoy.

[Martha Meyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

(A star in Kirkus) Laurie Lawlor writes about a wasteland between a library and a school that becomes a native plant sanctuary in Eagle, WI! There is an ephemeral pond in the spring where frogs sing and hatch, a prairie and an oak woods. Ms Lawlor shares the history of the exact land parcel from glaciers and then mastodons through to the Potawatomi and then early hardscrabble settlers and even an WW2 soldier who sent money home whose sister bought the land and thereby protected it from development. During the pandemic, we experience the four seasons alongside the students at the school as they complete poetry units, planting of natives, garlic mustard pulls, and library trips on the Eagle Nature Trail. Outstanding! (Thanks to the publisher for an ARC for Evanston Public Library's 101 & Blueberry Award Committees.) Don't miss this book when it comes out April 4th and don't believe the publisher that this book is only for 10 - 14 year olds -- it would also work for much younger kids if they read it with their parents, teachers or caregivers! Restores your hope.

[Grace · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley for an eARC of this book.

I was very excited to read this middle-grade nonfiction book. A community coming together to restore a prairie/woodland and create a path between the school and library? Sounds great. However, although the project was awesome, the book telling us about it feels a little all over the place. I was expecting a more detailed discussion of how the community actually restored the trail, so that kids could learn more about the process and get ideas for how to replicate it in their own yards/communities/etc. While there was some discussion of this, as well as how the school children used the trail throughout the year, there were other parts that were a slog. The history section felt dragged out and whitewashed the history of the indigenous peoples living in the area a bit too much for me (I also doubt that those chapters would keep the interest of a kid reading this book). Overall, the story of the community coming together to restore this land was really cool and inspiring, but I wish the book was a better reflection of that.

[Gretchen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not sure exactly what I thought this book was about when I took it out of the library but it became something different as I read it. This is the story of not only how nature can be restored and be restorative to individuals as well as a community, but also an example of what other schools, communities, and libraries could do for everyone's benefit. I must say that chapters 2-4 were important, especially if you want to use this book in a science unit or for some reference text, but chapters 1 & 5-8 were the ones that I wanted to keep reading to see the collaboration, caring, and wonder that brought this whole project together. Even if not used as an example for creating your own situation, this is a great book to use to get kids to notice more of what is around them in nature like the students do when they are given a chance to be observers and connect with the natural world.

[Ana W · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really lovely little book about a community to that came together and created an accessible nature trail in an area that had essentially been a wasteland. At first the goal was just to make the space between a school and library safer for children but as community members got involved, excitement built and as the possibilities came clear. This book describes how people came together to restore the ecosystem and create a trail, the history of the area, and of the course of the seasons how the elementary students experience the nature trail. Restoring Prairie, Woods, and Pond is inspirational, the information is accessible to children, but interesting to anyone. Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced copy in return for my honest opinion.

[Nichole · Rating 3 out of 5]

The research in this is incredibly impressive. I just wasn't all that interested or invested. The first chapter was enough for me and my interest level. This is a very well-done piece of local history and a road-map for others who would like to do a similar project.