It’s here! April 23rd release. If you like what you hear in my talks or read in my children’s books, this is the next step. Touch a Butterfly: Wildlife Gardening With Kids is perhaps my most personal book with a traditional publisher. Yes, it’s geared to parents and families, but I think some of my student fans, 5th grade and up, would like sections of it because in it I share not just wildlife gardening and family stories, but also how to approach/study wildlife at close range. It’s a heartfelt sharing of so much of what Jeff and I have learned in wildlife gardening/wildlife observation over the years. Reviewers seem to be getting the joy and spirit of the book so…whew! I’m so glad. And many families and educators shared photos of their kids enjoying nature and totally uplifted the project, making it a community effort. Roost Books has a free pdf of a chapter for free download here. Michelle Cusolito has a related blog post/author interview on her site Polliwog On Safari.

A little bit of my sound art, related to nonfiction.

Nonfiction2

Mule recording experiment

Instead of writing my novel3

   Val Byrd Fort, media specialist at New Providence Elementary fixed up these great invitations sent to students chosen for a special small group writers’ chat with me. This is a new event I started offering in addition to my traditional large group talks at schools late this school year. I met with only about 12 students each time. And oh, the joy of it!

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Read The Bumblebee Queen. Pull out the chewiest, most evocative vocabulary and put it on sticky notes. Then move around the words to make a poem of your own.

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It is going to take me quite a while to process all the great teaching techniques I witnessed at Indian Hill Elementary and Indian Hill Primary, two schools in Cincinnati. Just look at what Mrs. Bauer and her class were doing with nonfiction. This is a classroom full of words. You can see their process on the walls.

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