PAGE MACGUFFIN AND THE MAGIC SCROLL
In a wet slurry of wood and water, a few soggy fibers stick together in a floating mass of pulp. This wet ball is pressed and dried until it is flat and folded. Her threaded arms and legs unravel. She quietly slips between the pages and escapes into the forest.
This is Page, one of Mother Nature’s secret army of climate warriors. Page is made of paper.
Page lives in a Canadian forest that is dark and quiet. Paper is made from trees that grow-up here.
One tree can make 100 books. Books are fun to cuddle and read. Books make people smile. Trees make people smile too. Don’t cut down all the trees!
When a tree is too tall or crowded by its neighbors, it is ready for the mill.
The trees are chopped and washed, mixed and rolled, squeezed and dried into pieces of paper.
One tree can make paper. Many trees make habitat, dark and wet, tall and leafy.
Caterpillars wiggle onto the leaves and spin cocoons, deer find shade under the wide branches, woodpeckers hunt and peck for food in the bark.
Where the forest is quiet, the birds are loud.
Where the forest is dark, the sunlight is bright.
On Tuesday, Page is reading in her favorite tree nook. The trees are talking to each other, saying nothing much at all.
Sent by Mother Nature, a tree-hugging bear delivers an urgent message, Page translates his grunts and roars: A squirrel with no nuts needs our help!
Since the day she snuck out of the paper mill, Page has been ready to save the planet, with the power of paper.
She folds two origami birds, flaps out of the forest and into a neighborhood park.
The last oak tree standing, its branches dotted with plastic bags, has no nuts for the squirrels who live there.
Page quickly folds a paper step ladder. One bag at a time, she uncovers the tree’s blossoms.
After a few days of sun, each flower gives a bunch of nuts and the squirrels rejoice.
In this treeless park, Page and the squirrels plant the extra acorns for next year’s trees.
If we don’t plant more trees, there will be no more paper. Without paper, it will be very hard to draw...no matter how many crayons you have!
Page folds a secret nut hut for the squirrel family to hide acorns, fluffs and whirligigs.
