Rickie and Henri

I know it's a good picture book when it makes me cry.  I know it's an indescribably amazing picture book when I begin to cry in the first four pages. I guess that's what baby chimpanzees and Jane Goodall can do to me.  

The story of Rickie and Henri, by Jane Goodall, illustrated by Alan Marks, is not a typical picture book. While it's got about 32 pages, a publisher page in front, a letter from the author in the back, it touches on a pretty big topic. The killing and orphaning of chimpanzees in Africa. For little kids, it might almost seem like too much.  

Rickie is a chimpanzee, and her story starts out happy in the forest with her mama, living a regular chimpanzee life. But it quickly becomes a tale of horror and sorrow as Rickie's mother is killed by poachers, and the baby chimpanzee is taken to market to be sold. Personally, I can't hear stories like this without collapsing into a bucket of tears. I can imagine the fear, feel the pain, comprehend the suffering a little too much.  Lucky for me, or rather lucky for Rickie, the story takes another turn as Rickie finds a compassionate man who takes her in. There the young chimpanzee clings to Henri, a furry dog who acts as a friend and adult figure to the baby, until she is take to a chimpanzee refuge. 

Sadly, this picture book is based on a true story of a young chimpanzee that came to the Jane Goodall Institute's Tchimpounga Sanctuary many years ago. And more sadly still, chimpanzees continue to be poached, orphaned, misunderstood, and booted from the last remaining territory they have in the wild. Jane Goodall has been fighting this for many years, and I have always admired her work. This simple picture book however, made it all real to me once again. It made me cry for sure, but it also reminded me of the immense and ongoing need for compassion we have in our world. We all need so much, so maybe we all need to give a little more than we think we can, every day, a little bit. More. I think we can.

http://www.janegoodall.org/

The Armadillo Trail

I know nothing about Armadillos. Nada. But I picked up the book The Armadillo Trail by Stephen R. Swineburn, illustrated by Bruce Hiscock, because it looked like the kind of book I would want to write.

It turns out it is.

It is a beautifully illustrated story about the life of an armadillo. We follow a small family of female armadillos for several months, as they work to find food and survive the predators of the desert. Eventually, one of the youngsters breaks away and begins to head north to find her own life and mate. 

The facts tend to make it a little on the heavy side for me, but my seven-year-old science-minded son loved it. Out of several animal themed picture books we read recently, this was his favorite. Additionally, there are two pages at the back of the book, where you can read even further about the life of an armadillo. As with all books from Boyd's Mills Press, I trust that the information presented here is accurate and sound. I was glad this book, and the armadillos in it, crossed my trail, because it broadened my understanding of the world, just a bit by reading it.


It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)

Balance Wednesday- Be Grateful

Today is a good day. It is a day when I feel like a writer. Or, more specifically, I feel like an author. Today in Colorado Springs, CO, Pilgrimage Magazine is having a Release Party celebration for their newest issue. Volume 37, Issue 1; in which I have an essay. Today I feel like an author because I was asked to show up there and read.  

Unfortunately, I will not be able to visit Colorado Springs on this day, but I am utter grateful for the invitation to do so. When I think about Colorado, I think about the place that inspired my essay to begin with. Hovenweep National Monument. 

I went there as a fluke thirteen years ago, after I had finished hiking the Appalachian Trail. I was struggling with reentry into the "regular world," and while staying at my parent's house got a call from Jim at Hovenweep. He had my info through the Student Conservation Association application I had put in a year previously, and wondered if I wanted to come work in Nowheresville CO. I didn't, really, but I had nothing better to do. So I went.

And thus ensued one of the most poignant times in my life, part of which this essay is about. A time that I can be nothing but grateful for. A time of new friends, and a connection to the desert.  A time of solitude and of learning. A time that I could write whole volumes on myself.  

I am utterly grateful to have been given the opportunity to publish my first essay in Pilgrimage. You can't find this magazine on local shelves here in the East, but you can find the introduction by Guest Editor Juan Morales at the Pilgrimage website. You can also subscribe online and get this current issue, and future ones, mailed to your doorstep. The Release Party information is up on their Facebook Page, and I strongly urge you to go if you are in the area.

Today, I am grateful. And I very much hope that next time I am lucky enough to get a piece published in Pilgrimage, I will be able to get back to Colorado to read a little, party a little, and slip on back into the quiet of that little Monument in the desert that touched my heart.

The Chiru of High Tibet

One of the things I love about picture books, is the growing trend right now towards creative nonfiction stories. Real stories that are brought to life in colorful, easy-to-read, and narrative ways. The Chiru of High Tibet by Jacqueline Briggs Martin, illustrated by Linda S. Wingerter, is one of these books.

I found this book, published in 2010, to be a perfect meshing of fact and narrative. The story has an arc, has suspense, has characters we care about, all the while giving us information on an animal species most of us probably have never heard of, and a region of the world that we probably will never go to. Some of the facts are woven into the story, but there are also subtle side boxes to give us even more.

Chiru are deer or antelope like animals who live in the mountainous Chang Tang region of Northern Tibet, whose fur is extremely soft and luxurious. The chiru migrate through the mountains each year to an unknown location to birth and raise their babies. People did not know where this area was, but when they discovered that the fur made a wonderfully warm wrap, they were quite able to kill the adults in their summer lands.  Eventually, like many other species in a similar situation, this population began to lessen. The crux of the book asks "In the wide, unpeople plains, who would care if the chiru disappeared?"

Who cares, is what the rest of the story is about. It tells of one man who tried to find and protect the chiru calving grounds, but failed. Then there was the expedition of four explorers who took up that quest to protect the chiru. They trekked across Tibet through harsh conditions to follow the chiru to the calving grounds, and find a way to protect this land. 

This book is nonfiction, done in a creative way. I may never see a chiru in high Tibet, but this picture book made me care about them, made me wonder just how soft that chiru fur is, and made me quickly turn each page to find out what happens next in their story.

Little Free Library

There once was a box.

A boring old box.

Then along came a family who wanted to make it into something a little more fun and friendly.

So they worked in the hot sun.

They cut,

and they danced,

and they painted,

until the box became less of a box, and more like something people might enjoy.

Details were added, and tiny touches of paint. And now the box has a new life... 

As a Little Free Library on our street.

You can stop by on your walk around the neighborhood and Take a Book, or Leave a Book, or BOTH!  

 Free Books for all!

The idea comes from LittleFreeLibrary.org  and while I haven't sprung for the $35 to register to be on their map, the library is up and available for use starting today!  (If anyone wants to donate a part of the registration fee to help out our little free library, drop me a note.)
So come on by, bring a book to share, or just pick one off the shelf to take home.  Most importantly, READ!