LOG LIFE

A picture of the long and beneficial role played by a “nurse log” in the forest’s cycle of growth and renewal.

A tall fir tree begins a “new life” when it falls in a storm—first as a site for a “big, mushroomy party,” then as a host for carpenter ants that draw hungry birds, and then through years and even centuries to nurture new seedling trees while serving as “a soggy shelter to all kinds of critters.” Hevron’s airy tone (“Snails vacayed in the decay”) is mirrored in forest scenes featuring mushrooms with smiley faces and cute though otherwise accurately detailed creatures of many sorts snoozing or scampering about while exchanging comments: “I’ll lay some larvae here.” “Me too!” “Me three!” By the time the log has disappeared (1,000 years later, a running label suggests), a towering successor stands in its place…to fall itself one day and bring the natural process full circle. Though the flora and fauna depicted here are specific to the temperate rainforest of the Pacific Northwest, as the author notes in the backmatter, she closes with a list of old-growth forest sites in other parts of the U.S. where readers can explore nurse log habitats.

Natural history, served with a smile.