New ‘Wildlife Adventure’ Book Settles in a Beaver Lodge

Park City’s Park Record recently shined a spotlight on Rascal’s Year of Adventures, the newest title in the Wildlife Adventures for Young Readers series and the 12th book in the collection. Set in and around a beaver lodge in Canada’s Wood Buffalo National Park, the story follows Rascal, an American beaver who struggles to pay attention to the world around him—until his many mishaps begin to teach him otherwise. Park Record

The article highlights how Rascal’s story grew out of a real place: one of the largest and most remote beaver dams and lodges in Wood Buffalo National Park. It also shares how the book gently weaves in the important role beavers play in healthy ecosystems. Beaver dams help slow and store water on the landscape, which can create natural buffers in the face of drought and fire. As the Park Record piece notes, the very first pages of the book focus on Rascal’s lodge, his dam, and the busy community life around it. Park Record

Wildfire resilience is a deeply personal theme in this story. Years ago, Melissa lost her home in California’s 2008 Tea Fire, one of thousands of fires that burned across the state that year. That experience has shaped many of the “home” threads in her books—stories that balance real ecological science with characters who find courage, resilience, and belonging in the natural world. Park Record

The Park Record feature also introduces readers to the creative team behind Rascal’s Year of Adventures: illustrator Alexandra Lehner, who is bringing Rascal and his world to life through 16 interior illustrations, and longtime designer Aileen Aquino, who has helped refine the series’ distinctive format over many books. Together with Lucky Penny Publications’ print‑on‑demand model, this team makes it possible to keep the stories current, responsive, and available to young readers wherever their adventures take them. Park Record+1

Rascal’s Year of Adventures will be published on September 20, a date that marks both Melissa’s 60th birthday and the 10‑year anniversary of writing the Wildlife Adventures for Young Readers series. Previous books in the collection have taken readers from Utah’s red rock canyons to dark‑sky parks and beyond; Rascal now invites them into the cool, shadowy calm of a northern beaver lodge. Park Record+1

If you’d like to bring Rascal’s story into your home, classroom, or nature center, Rascal’s Year of Adventures will be available through Lucky Penny Publications and other booksellers. For information about this book or to place an order for titles in the Wildlife Adventures for Young Readers series, please email melissa@luckypennypress.com or visit luckypennypublications.com. Park Record+1