Leopold for a new generation of readers

Aldo Leopold: American Ecologist
Peter Anderson
Franklin Watts, Inc., 1995
63 pp., $22

Tim Richard, who's also interested in ecology, pollinates sweet corn at his home last summer.

Aldo Leopold was an American ecologist, ranger, state park manager, and holder of many other ranks concerned with wildlife and nature. But just what is an ecologist? An ecologist is someone frequently involved with the outdoors who studies the relationship between plants and animals.

Aldo Leopold was an ecologist even during his early years, learning the language of birds, animal tracks, geography, and about the water's creatures. When he was in his teens, his father, Carl Leopold, gave Aldo his first gun, a double-barrel shotgun for hunting. Carl gave his son the gun only if Aldo promised to live by this rule: "Never kill more than you need or kill just for fun," which Aldo always followed. When Aldo attended boarding school in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, he was known as "nature-boy" because of his habit of taking long nature walks, or tramps, through the woods.

After Leopold graduated from forestry school at Yale University, he was hired by the U.S. Forest Service to help with grazing problems in the western states of New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona. When he was called to work out a difference with sheepmen, he had to sleep out in a bad storm and got sick. It was a serious kidney disease called nephritis and Aldo almost died. He had to leave his ranger job for six months.

His next task was to write a guidebook for foresters about the outdoors. He also began to work with local groups to support laws that regulated hunting and preserved wilderness areas. Because of his health problems, he decided to leave the Southwest for an office job with the U.S. Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin. There he and his wife, Estella, and their four children bought an abandoned farm. The Leopold family restored the farm and made it into a forest, bringing back the plants and wildlife. Aldo Leopold died fighting a backyard fire. He had a heart attack, and then fell down in the grass where his body was found.

This book is probably best for third through sixth graders, although others will enjoy it. The author explains Aldo's adventures in easy but interesting terms and with a lot of photographs. More information about how Aldo got people to cooperate with his ideas would have made it an even better book.

Aldo Leopold was a man who dedicated his life to the cause of ecology in America. His ideas are important for the whole world. -Tim Richard

EDITOR'S NOTE: Tim Richard, 11, will be a seventh grader at Ames Middle School. He is the son of Clare Hinrichs and Tom Richard, professors affiliated with ISU's Graduate Program in Sustainable Agriculture.

Other books about Aldo Leopold for young readers

• Aldo Leopold: Living with the Land, by Julie Dunlap. Twenty-First Century Books, 1993.
• Aldo Leopold: Protector of the Wild, by Della A. Yannuzzi. Millbrook Press, To be published July 2002.
• Earthkeepers: Observers and Protectors of Nature, by Ann T. Keene. Oxford University Press, 1994.
• Of Things Natural, Wild and Free: A Story about Aldo Leopold, by Marybeth Lorbiecki, Carolrhoda Books, 1993.

Other educational materials are available from The Leopold Education Project, toll-free telephone: (877) 773-2070; or on the web at: www.lep.org.