“As an adult, Henry David Thoreau may have had his Walden. Annie Dillard inhabited her Tinker Creek. But as a child, Bob Pyle became his High Line Canal—an accidental wilderness, he called it, surrounded by urban wasteland. “A ditch, a ravine, a cluster of trees at the end of the cul de sac, an empty (filled!) lot; to an adult’s eyes, such nearby nature may seem insignificant. But to a child, these places can be doorways into whole galaxies. They’re as important to human experience as wilderness, and formative to nearly every conservationists’ consciousness.” — Richard Louv, from the new Foreword “Pyle has written an engrossing story of at least two levels: a charming memoir of his youth on the canal and a sobering account of uncontrolled development and loss of habitat.” — Publishers Weekly “The Thunder Tree was a huge, hollow old cottonwood in which the author and his brother once found shelter as children from a life-threatening hailstorm. The tree grew along the High Line Canal, built in the late 19th century as part of a grand plan to bring river water to the Western plains for irrigation. Only a portion of the canal was ever built, but that portion happened to run through the city of Aurora, Colorado, where the author lived as a child and young adult … this book is about the relationship between people and natural areas and how each affects the other.” — Library Journal “Never preachy, never cloying: a powerful and memorable example of place writing.” — Kirkus Reviews