What They Said... "Chip The Dam Builder"

What they said… Chip, The Dam Builder   llllll   Chip, the Dam Builder appeared in hardcover from New York’s Holiday House in Sep. 1950. It was the second of three of Kjelgaard’s books illustrated by Ralph Ray, Jr. The others were:  Buckskin Brigade (1947) and Fire-Hunter (1951). Kjelgaard’s ninth novel, Chip, the Dam Builder received exceptional reviews across the industry, including a starred review from Kirkus, calling it “gripping, exciting” and “a spell-binder of a book—informative and compelling…” This write-up from Saturday Review—seen below—called Chip, the Dam Builder “one of the best of the wild-animal stories of 1950.”

CHIP THE DAM BUILDER. By Jim Kjelgaard. Illustrated by Ralph Ray. New York: Holiday House. 233 pp. $2.50. Jim Kjelgaard is always able to bring plot and action to his stories of wild animals. The beaver, who is the hero of this one, is one of the most convincing of his animal characters. Anyone who has been lucky enough to see beavers at work knows that there is something curiously human and appealing about them. They build so well that their dams affect the water courses and the water level of the lakes all through our Northern woods. They fell a tree with their teeth as easily and effectively as man can fell it with his tools. This story of Chip and of his friends and enemies in the forest rises to a climax in a fight to the death between Chip and his arch-enemy, the lynx. Man enters into the story, but as a friend, not an enemy. End-papers and black-and-white drawings illustrate one of the best of the wild-animal stories of 1950.