The cover of Nicholas Oldland’s The Busy Beaver makes you want to tear into the book like a box of Cracker Jack. It’s hard to tell why. Is it the appealing haplessness of the titular beaver? The irony of his wide, anything-but-busy stance? The book’s clichéd title and well-worn anthropomorphizations don’t seem like a recipe for success, but Oldland, author of Big Bear Hug and Making the Moose Out of Life, once again takes these ingredients and creates something punchy, even powerful.

It turns out the “busy” in the title is a synonym for “careless.” The beaver, in his zeal to fell trees, makes a mess of the forest and, in the process, alienates himself from the other animals. After an accident renders him immobile and in the recovery ward, he finally sees the destruction and hurt he has caused, and sets about trying to make things right.

Oldland’s spare text and illustrations are a great match for the book’s young audience. He keeps the narrative moving along, but has a good sense of where to dwell linguistically: he includes a numbered list of the beaver’s injuries, all the way from “a bent tail” to “ten nasty slivers,” and renders the rehab program like a movie montage.

We end up with a hero both gauche and inspiring, and a message that’s Canadian through and through: clean up the forest, say sorry, and we can all be friends.