Fire!: The Renewal of a Forest

Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children's Non-Fiction Honour Book, 2007

Silver Birch Express shortlist, 2008

Canadian Children's Book Centre Our Choice 2007 finalist

Canadian Science Writers' Association's Science in Society Journalism Award nominee, Youth Book category, 2007

It hasn't rained in the forest for many weeks. And in the sunny clearing, everything is dry and scorched. Then, late one afternoon, a hot wind begins to blow and storm clouds gather. But instead of rain, lightning fills the sky and strikes a tall tree beside the clearing. The lightning strike shoots down the tree and ignites the dry vegetation below. In no time, the forest is engulfed in flame. Soon there is nothing left but the charred ruins of the forest, devoid of life.

But the story is not over. Slowly and gradually, life returns to the forest - from the seeds that blow in on the wind and germinate, to the small creatures that have survived in their burrows below the ground. It will take many years; but eventually the forest will return, filled with life once more.

In Fire!, Celia Godkin’s fifth on how Nature regenerates, she has chosen North America’s boreal forests to show that even a fire’s destructive force is an integral part of a thriving ecosystem. Celia now lives in an old farmhouse in Eastern Ontario.