Crooked Billet Elementary: HHEF Author visit

"When the clouds grow darker and the rain pelts and stings, I'm here, my little duck. Keep warm beside my wings." In this comforting read-aloud story, all the animals find cozy places to keep them safe and warm, no matter how loud the storm rumbles or how dark the night gets. Next to their mothers, the baby animals are able to let go of their fears and fall asleep despite the storm.

What do you want to be when you grow up? People work in various jobs. Very often, clothes fit the job. The right shoes, for example, can make a job easier or safer. A nurse wouldn't wear construction boots, and a construction worker wouldn't wear ballet slippers. There is the right shoe for every job. Steve Swinburne explores various occupations through a simple, lively text and bright, colorful photographs.

A mother turtle swims to shore. She digs a hole in a dune where she lays one hundred eggs. Following her instinct, she covers the eggs with sand and slowly makes her way back to sea. What happens next, from eggs to hatchlings, is one of the most extraordinary occurrences in nature. For the eggs provide food for other animals, and the eggs that survive produce hatchlings that, again, provide food for birds and crabs. Even those hatchlings that make it to the ocean face an uncertain future.

Stephen R. Swinburne takes young readers to where black bears live. He joins biologists in search of bears in the Pennsylvania woods, where a mother bear is examined and her cubs tagged. He visits a "schoolteacher" for orphaned cubs, who teaches them how to survive in the wild.

Children get a peek at the workings of the Vermont Raptor Center, where orphaned or injured birds of prey, ranging from owls to eagles, are nurtured back to health and, if able, are released back into the wild. Hannah, a capable, conscientious 16-year-old, leads a behind-the-scenes tour, fielding questions from a school group and demonstrating the feeding and care of the birds. Informative sidebars fill in the blanks in this accessible and enjoyable resource, which is full of color photos picturing the birds and their caretakers.

The book traces the persecution of the wolf throughout history and also reveals the role scientists have played in wolf preservation. The work of scientists can often seem mysterious and intimidating to the nonscientist. No longer! Introducing an exciting perspective on the important work of scientists in all areas of research and study.

Stephen Swinburne and Bruce Hiscock follow the trail of one armadillo in Texas that gives birth to four female pups. When her babies are ready, the mother leads them out of their burrow. Soon they learn how to dig for worms and beetles to eat. The young armadillos keep growing and keep moving, staying alert for dogs and other predators. They wander ever northward on a journey of survival fraught with danger.

Dive in for a taste of tide pool soup! When the tide goes out, a briny soup is trapped among the rocks. Playful poems introduce readers to ten salty tide-pool creatures--from a self-satisfied anemone that brags about its home to barnacles that perform a rap about their feeding technique. The poems are brought to life by Mary Peterson's lighthearted illustrations. A secondary layer of factual text introduces children to the creatures that inhabit North American tide pools.

The Turtle Lady of St. Kitts, also known as Dr. Kimberly Stetwart, is already waiting at midnight when an 800-pound leatherback sea turtle crawls awkwardly out of the Caribbean surf and on to the sandy beach. The mother turtle has a job to do, and it's a vital one: dig a nest where she will lay eggs that will hatch into part of the next generation of leatherbacks. With only one in a thousand of the eggs for this critically endangered species producing an adult sea turtle, the odds are stacked against her and her offspring. Lying in the sand on the dark beach, Kimberly is hard at work, too: taking samples and measurements from mother turtles, counting eggs as they're laid, and even relocating vulnerable nests. Renowned author and photographer Steve Swinburne journeys through history to examine the leatherback and other sea turtles. Learn how they came to be endangered and how they can be saved.