Aldo Leopold’s Shack

This charming children’s book tells the tale of an extraordinary family’s efforts to restore a worn-out Wisconsin farm during the Depression and the 1940s. Noted conservationist Aldo Leopold—along with his wife, Estella, and their five children and two dogs—spent most weekends and vacations living and working at the Sand County farm they called the Shack, which is now a national historic landmark. Leopold’s time there led to his foundational work of environmental writing, A Sand County Almanac, which was based on the scientific observations recorded in his family’s “Shack journals.” Drawing from these journals, historic family photographs, and interviews, and writing from the perspective of Leopold’s daughter Nina, Nancy Nye Hunt captures here the spirit of this famous family’s experiences on the land.