Mary Casanova’s series challenges readers to be aware of the moral dilemmas that trail behind efforts to protect the wildlife of northern Minnesota.
“Seth stood still, unable to take his eyes off the scene. From what he could make of it, all the bears’ paws had been hacked off. The animals were slaughtered for their paws and perhaps a part of their innards”.
Twelve-year-old Seth is out riding his horse in the woods near his house when he first encounters the disastrous impact of the two poachers who are also roaming the forest. Witness to a crime that leaves a moose calf wounded and without the protection of its mother, the poachers responsible threaten to harm Seth and his family if he tells his father, the game warden, about what he saw them do.
Battling fear and anxious to prove himself to his step-dad, Seth endeavors to rescue the moose calf before the poachers can get it as well as its mother. Eventually, his friend, Matt, joins him in the search. Along the way, the two boys continue to see the sad and wasteful trail left by the two poachers and Seth begins to understand the importance of his dad’s job.
“Maybe some poachers are trying to put food on their table, Seth thought. That might be forgivable. But for others, poaching must be a sort of game, like shooting ducks at a carnival booth and taking home cash . . . . Beyond being a threat to Seth, there was a rottenness about them that posed a threat to the woods and everything in it”.
At the same time, Seth begins to see one of his own actions in a different light. Before his run-in with the poachers, he took out his gun and, without waiting for his dad, shot a rabbit. Then, taking one paw, he left the rest of the rabbit in the woods. It had seemed like a badge of honor, and the brave action was meant to prove to his father that he was growing up and that he was responsible enough to take the gun out on his own. However, seeing the poachers’ destructiveness reminds him of the rabbit and the wastefulness of his own actions.
In this fast-paced adventure that takes place in northern Minnesota, Mary Casanova brings her readers on a journey that illustrates the importance of thinking before acting and encourages a healthy respect for wildlife and the laws that govern our interaction with it.
Wolf Shadows, the second book in Casanova’s series, picks up where Moose Tracks leaves off. Another fast-paced adventure, this book drops Seth right in the middle of another heated wildlife conflict that is very prominent in Minnesota: the wolf population.
When Seth’s best friend, Matt, believes a pack of wolves killed one of his favorite calves, he retaliates by shooting the next wolf he sees. Seth, standing right beside Matt as the older boy carries out his illegal vengeance, struggles to decide how to respond to Matt’s disregard for the law and his overwhelming hatred for wolves.
Casanova’s books are available online at http:// www.upress.umn.edu/ and various online bookstores.
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