Life in the Wild: The Collected Adventures of the Bear, the Moose and the Beaver

Written and illustrated by Nicholas Oldland

Kids Can Press

978-1-5253-1292-2

200 pp.

Ages 4-8

September 2024

Nicholas Oldland's Bear, Moose and Beaver have returned and they're in an amazing collection of six previously published books so young readers won't just be introduced to these characters but really get to know them.

The six stories included in this collection are Big Bear Hug, Making the Moose Out of Life, The Busy Beaver, Up the Creek, Walk on the Wild Side, and Hockey in the Wild. Playing up some fun puns, Nicholas Oldland truly takes us into the wild lives of his trio of friends.

From Life in the Wild, written and illustrated by Nicholas Oldland

Big Bear Hug is a story of how a bear loves to give hugs to everyone and everything but most especially trees. But when a man with an axe arrives to chop down one of the most beautiful trees, the bear has other ideas.

From Life in the Wild, written and illustrated by Nicholas Oldland

Making the Moose Out of Life has a moose who starts to wonder if he's missing out on life and decides "to take life by the antlers." (pg. 49) Instead, a sailing misadventure leads to new experiences, a new friend, and the catalyst for courage to try new things.

 

A very busy but careless beaver learns the error of his ways when hospitalized after a tree-felling mishap in The Busy Beaver. However, his rehabilitation for his injuries gives him the opportunity to make right his mistakes.

From Life in the Wild, written and illustrated by Nicholas Oldland

Up the Creek's tale focuses on the three friends learning to cooperate on a canoeing trip filled with disasters and bickering. It is only through teamwork that the bear, moose and beaver can survive.

 

The theme of cooperation is revisited in Walk on the Wild Side when a mountain hike becomes a competition that becomes dangerous.

From Life in the Wild, written and illustrated by Nicholas Oldland

Finally, in Hockey in the Wild (reviewed here in 2020), the trio anticipate the start to their hockey season on the ice but patience is necessary to keep themselves safe to enjoy their winter pastime.

 

In all these stories, Nicolas Oldland infuses his characters with honest friendships while they learn lessons in patience, cooperation, teamwork, compassion and more. And he does so by example, not by preaching. Nicholas Oldland ensures that each animal is unique, quirky in their own ways, and yet willing to change when needed to help others and help themselves grow as individuals.

From Life in the Wild, written and illustrated by Nicholas Oldland

Teachers and parents may love the stories for the important lessons Nicholas Oldland imparts but kids will adore them for the silliness of these very realistic stories–who hasn't had a competition with a peer or sibling that ended in disaster?–and Nicholas Oldland's digital art. The simplicity of the shape and lines of his characters and settings make everything easily recognizable but it's the details in the expressiveness of his characters' faces and gestures that will be more relatable and still very cute. Whether chagrined at a capsized canoe or standing in a bathing suit on an ice-covered lake, the bear, moose and beaver emote according to all life's circumstances and tell children that they know how they feel.

 

Nicholas Oldland offers readers a great opportunity to take a comprehensive walk on the wild side with the bear, the moose and the beaver in Life in the Wild because whether it's winter or summer, spring or fall, there's always something happening, including ways to live in the not-so-wild.