There are things in this life  I do not know and have no expectation of ever knowing. Trigonometry.. French. How to bake a souffle.  But THIS. Tell me HOW in the HELL I did not know about this?

El Rio De Los Castores

A group of beavers searches for the cause of the death of the animal and plant species that inhabit the river where they live. The river is sick, but no one knows why. Moi, the little beaver, embarks on a dangerous journey upriver to find the source of the illness. Will he be able to bring his beloved river back to life? This endearing story denounces the threat and destruction suffered by nature due to the destructive power of man.

The book was published in Spanish in 1980 by Fernando  Martinez Gil. Yes. Martinez. It was republished a few times since then. The idea is that man has made our rivers sick and BEAVERS can help us fix them.

There are fantastical illustrations and luxurious story telling. You can flip through the pages here and I will give you some tidbits to whet your appetite. Mind you I took six years of spanish but very little of it had to do with beavers..

Habia una vez (Once upon a time)  un largo rio de limpias y claras andando andando  trasaba de parte de parte) there was a long, clear river, flowing from one side to the other) a  un imenso bosque tan imenso de a ninguna de sus moradores en la habia en la corrido pensar que pudiese tener limites.(through an immense forest so vast that none of its inhabitants could have imagined it could have any limits).

Isn’t that beautiful? Don’t you,want to sit down criss-cross applsauce right now on the rug and hear the rest?

Pero si alguien habia que pudiera compenetrarse complementa con el rio esa era el castor. (But if there was anyone who could completely connect with the river, it would be the beaver.) />

Dust off your language skills or find you closet friend who speaks Spanish and have them read this to you. The little beaver who solves the mystery is named Moi, and you can bet that humans are involved.