Prairie Dog Song: The Key to Saving North America’s Grasslands

Best Books, Kirkus Reviews
Junior Library Guild Selection, Junior Library Guild
Noteworthy Books for Children and Teens, Capitol Choices

Focusing on the role of prairie dogs as a keystone species, this book tells the connected histories of the North American grassland prairies and current efforts to preserve and recover the Janos grasslands in northern Mexico.

For thousands of years, green and gold grasses covered North America from Canada to Mexico. The prairie and desert grasslands were home to a variety of animals, from small prairie dogs to huge bison. But in the nineteenth century, ranching and farming took hold in the grasslands, and over time many of the animals and plants vanished.

Then, in the late 1980s, scientists discovered a region in Mexico where green and gold grasses still waved and prairie dogs still barked. The scientists understood the importance of this grassland ecosystem and the prairie dogs’ key role in it. Could they now preserve the area and bring back its lost animals and plants?

This moving nonfiction tale of environmental recovery builds on the success of the acclaimed Parrots Over Puerto Rico and The Mangrove Tree. Cumulative song text plus prose passages combine to celebrate North America’s grasslands, their iconic prairie dogs, and the dedicated scientists who work to make the grasslands healthy again.