BOOKS YOU CAN USE TO HELP KIDS WRITE AND LEARN ABOUT ECOLOGY AND MORE

I get to work with a lot of kids. Thousands of them...........These days, many have never gone outside in ways that put them face to face with the incredible diversity nature has to offer. Or maybe it is just that so many kids these days don't live in rural places or they only visit sealife parks or zoos and other artifical environemnts? I don't know..........But they can enter a world where Two Kids I created for a series of books help them see and experience worlds of nature in Hawaii and Alaska, our newest states and our most precious natural learning places.

SWIMMING WITH HUMUHUMU is all about two kids from the mainland who visit Kauai with their parents. On every page, Maddie and Cole experience new life forms in a very natural and real life way. Actually, the two kids are my pretend Grandkids and their parents are Scott and Nichol...........

Maddie and Cole write postcards of their experiences to my wife, Brenda......except in the book, they are simply writing to Gramma.........as they learn some Hawaiian, they write to their Tutu, Gramma in Hawaiian.

Little Books within this book help the reader learn more about Monk Seals, Whales, and Sea Shells. Hawaiian words and a bit of culture sneak in too. Illustrated by my friend and the wonderful Hawaiian artist, Tammy Yee, I bet you will love this book if you are new to the islands. I still pick it off my shelf from time to time and use its pages to bring me back to snorkel trips and moments when I first saw an octopus while swimming down at a favorite beach or when, as a family, we first saw humpbacks leaping free of the turquoise ocean..........

AM I A VISITING AUTHOR, ARTIST, SCIENTIST, OR WHAT????

If you are visiting this site to consider a visit to your school, think about how kids respond in other schools I work with and have worked with during the past 20 years and more.........

Lately, I seem to use more of my art skill, helping kids create beautiful works they can use to express concern about the environment.

And yet, my friend Sharon Buda who is an art teacher, will tell you that she brings me to Wyandot mostly for my science skills.........Afterall, I am a biologist and love nothing more than to take kids out to a field, farm, wetland, river, pond, or ocean coast and see what we can find. Netting baby fish, frogs, and helping a child find a salamander............these can be life changing experiences for the growing number of kids who spend more time indoors than out in nature.

Writing......Hmmmm. Yes, I am a writer and use art and ecology to help kids WRITE FROM EXPERIENCES. This is what I am best at, I think..........helping teachers find ways to get the most reluctant writer to write. But we need to include art and ecology to make it work!


To get in touch, Call me at 360-379-1729

or email at whalemail@waypoint.com