About the Story.
This guide is part of the Values & Virtues library — a free collection of 400+ book guides and activities organized around 12 core virtues for children from pre-K to 6th grade. Each guide includes Guiding Questions designed to open a real conversation with your child in 10 minutes or less.
Belize is a country in Central America that has a very special rainforest called the Maya Forest. The people of Belize are troubled by what’s happening to some of the animals that live in the rainforest. Here’s a story about two of the creatures that live there: the black howler monkey and the toucan. Just as we humans live in houses, these animals have homes, too - in the forest canopy, high above the ground. This is where they sleep, eat, take care of their children, and travel.
The black howler family woke up one morning to the sound of machines cutting down trees. They were way up in the canopy, almost at the very top of the broadleaf evergreen trees. With loud howls, they warned the howler troops that lived nearby to move away from the loggers. The monkeys swung through the trees, using their hands, feet, and tails to grasp the branches so they wouldn’t fall to the forest floor where snakes and other predators live. The machines roared and the trees fell, making a sound like a clap of thunder when they hit the ground.
As the machines came closer that day, the monkeys howled and moved as fast as possible to look for a new place to live. The large, yellow-beaked brightly colored toucans that shared the canopy with howler monkeys, were also forced to fly away from the machines. They had raised their young in tree hollows that could no longer be used as homes. The toucan families and howler monkey troops moved deeper into the forest that day, and began to search for a place that would provide them with what they needed - food, such as fruits, nuts and leaves, water, shelter, and safety. They dream of a time when their human brothers and sisters will preserve the forest and protect the animals and plants that live there.
