So begins an unusual tale set in 1870 on a small farm 20 miles from Winnipeg. Ben is six years old and very small for his age. He's an odd lad who likes to follow animals around and emulate their behaviour, preferring their company to that of his own family.
His father thinks there's something wrong with him, while his mother feels he just needs a little more time to grow out of it. When neighbours see him clucking like a chicken and eating grass like a lamb, there's bound to be talk.
One day while out on the prairie he encounters a badger and follows it on all fours, micmicking its grunting and chattering. He is enthralled when he sees it eating a mouse, and moves close enough to offer it some baby mice from an abandoned nest. At length the badger tolerates him.
Later his family is visited by a crude trapper who proudly exhibits a dead badger that he's trapped. Ben's father worries about the safety of his young family, for he knows that badgers can be dangerous and he has already lost two horses due legs broken from stepping into badger holes. Though he doesn't like the trapper, he lets himself be goaded into skinning the badger. This results in a confrontation between Ben and his father that ends badly.
The stage is now set for the most engaging part of the novel. Ben is out on the prairie when a storm hits, and he ends up taking shelter in the den of the badger that he previously met. When he doesn't return home his family is frantic, and the story veers back and forth over a period of weeks between them and life in the badger den. This part is admirably done.
The book includes scratchboard images by John Schoenherr. The Boy Who Talked to Badgers is a 1975 Disney movie very loosely based on the book.
