Saving the Buffalo - Hardcover

Marrin, Albert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0439718546 ISBN 13: 9780439718547

Publisher: Scholastic Nonfiction, 2006

Synopsis

The American Bison, or buffalo, was once considered the symbol of the United States. This compelling story tells how it reached the brink of extinction, and how it was saved.

Saving the Buffalo explores the astonishing fate of these huge animals. There is no simple answer to their near extinction. The interplay of natural forces and people, both Native Americans and settlers, played a critical role in the story of this American symbol.

Many thousands of buffalo roamed the Great Plains for centuries. The first Native Americans had more than 100 uses for the buffalo, but only killed as many as they needed.

About this title

From School Library Journal:

Starred Review. Grade 5-7–In characteristically robust prose, Marrin retraces the American bison's roller-coaster ride from Lord of the Great Plains to near extinction at the end of the 19th century, and slow recovery. Along with showing how the buffalo fit into the habitat's complex, interdependent ecology, he describes in vivid detail how the animals were hunted and utilized by indigenous peoples–That night, there were favorite dishes like blood soup, that is, blood poured into boiling water and thickened with brains–until being nearly exterminated through a combination of sport hunting, hide harvesting, and a campaign of deliberate slaughter intended to weaken Indian resistance to settlement. A generous array of accompanying illustrations includes crisply reproduced photos, both new and old; prints; paintings; and pictures of artifacts. Closing with an account of the buffalo's rescue and the state of both wild and domestic herds today, this title makes a splashy (sometimes literally so: An enraged buffalo...might suddenly turn its head, slicing open a horse's belly with its horns, sending guts gushing out) alternative to Dorothy Hinshaw Patent's equally passionate but more restrained The Buffalo and the Indians: A Shared Destiny (Clarion, 2006).–John Peters, New York Public Library
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About this edition

• Publisher: Scholastic Nonfiction
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0439718546
• ISBN 13: 9780439718547
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 128