Mirrna and the Marmots: A Story of Two Endangered Species

Sue Giles was a librarian at the Ryerson Polytechnical Institute in Toronto.

Mirrna is a lonely faery living on the southern tip of Vancouver Island; the other faeries had left when children ceased to believe in them, and the animals had left because of the pollution.

Mirrna decides to fly north to seek her family but, battered by a storm, lands among a colony of white-nosed Vancouver Island marmots, who share their food and burrows with her. Eventually she feels it is time to leave; as a parting present, she plants trees to provide cover for the marmots and also plants that they love to eat. Upon saying goodbye to the marmots, she finds faery signs showing her the way to her family and happily flies off.

This is a short but attractively illustrated tale with a carefully incorporated ecological orientation, for, of course, the faery and the marmots are the endangered species of the title. The introduction, by the Vancouver Island Marmot Preservation Committee, states that there are fewer than 100 Vancouver Island Marmots left. The impression is that the book was commissioned by this group to press home the plight of this animal.

This book should appeal to preschoolers and grade one children; perhaps it will make their parents sympathetic to the cause in question.