EASTER ISLAND: Giant Stone Statues Tell the Story of a Rich and Tragic Past

A new movie, Wild Horse Nine, is set in the 1970s and puts its characters on Easter Island, the tiny island in the South Pacific that is the most remote inhabited place on Earth. I visited Easter Island in 1996 and wrote a book about it. If you would like to learn about the real history of Easter Island, you can find my book EASTER ISLAND: Giant Stone Statues Tell of a Rich and Tragic Past, on Amazon as a Kindle book, (It is also available in hardcover and paperback.)

MY FATHER'S MEMOIR--SHADOWS ON A WALL, Now Available as an Audio Book

My memoir about growing up at North East Neighborhood House in Minneapolis in the 1950s, SETTLEMENT HOUSE GIRL, was inspired by my father's memoir, SHADOWS ON A WALL, about his childhood and career as a settlement house worker in the 1930s through the 1970s. My memoir is a window on life in mid-century American . His memoir chronicles the previous generation. Together the two books shed light on the roots of the person I am today.

SHADOWS ON A WALL: The Autobiographical Writings of Lester Lewis Scheaffer has been available for some time on Amazon as an e-book. It is now available as an AUDIO BOOK. You can read a short sample for free.

Here is the description of SHADOWS ON A WALL on Amazon:

Les Scheaffer's career as a settlement house worker began in Chicago in the 1930s and continued in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Minneapolis and San Francisco. In his retirement, he reflected on his life and family in a series of poems and essays, writing especially about his growing up years in Kenosha, Wisconsin. This book is a portrait of what it was like to grow up in a small Midwestern city in the 1920s and 1930s and a glimpse into the lives of settlement workers just before and during World War II. It includes two stories about Camp Bovey, the settlement house camp in northern Wisconsin, founded by Les when he was the director of the Northeast Neighborhood House in Minneapolis. The title of the book is from a Wallace Stegner quotation that he had chosen to be part of the book under a category called "food for thought." The "shadows" in this book are vivid and multifaceted and tell us a great deal about the man that was Les Scheaffer.

My book, SETTLEMENT HOUSE GIRL, is available on Amazon as both an e-book and as a paperback. It will also be available as an audio book soon.

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The Scheaffer family at NENH 1948. Les, Kay, Caroline (age 4) and Stephen (10 months).

KIRKUS REVIEW of FISH IN SCHOOL: How Kids are Helping Trout

I am so pleased with this excellent review from Kirkus of my new book FISH IN SCHOOL.  

FISH IN SCHOOL
How Kids Are Helping Trout
Author: Caroline Arnold
Photographer: Caroline Arnold

Review Issue Date: December 1, 2026
Online Publish Date: October 28, 2026
Publisher: Millbrook/Lerner
Pages: 40
Price ( Library Ed ): $33.32
Publication Date: March 2, 2027
ISBN ( Library Ed ): 9798348056179
Section: Children's

In a project that brings nature into the classroom, California schoolchildren raise steelhead trout from eggs and then release the hatchlings into the wild.

With just the right level of detail to encourage other teachers and students to undertake similar class projects, Arnold describes how eggs donated by a nearby fish hatchery are first placed in an aquarium kitted out with a cooler to maintain the proper temperature. The children carefully attend to the resultant hatchlings over 10 weeks as they mature from alevin to two-inch fry and are then released into a river down which they will travel to the ocean. Along with describing a visit to the hatchery, Arnold lays out the life cycle of the trout, which are closely related to salmon and likewise born in rivers to which the few that survive their many predators return to spawn. She concludes with more information about the specific program she profiles here, as well as further details about the trout’s life cycle and suggestions for other conservation initiatives such as fish ladders for dammed or obstructed spawning rivers. In Arnold’s photos, close-ups of the necessary gear and of the fish at different stages of development alternate with glimpses of light-skinned, racially diverse young students from several schools looking interested and involved.

A model for studying and conserving wildlife, simple and safe. (glossary, range map, further reading) (Nonfiction. 6-8)

 

PASTA ANIMAL SKELETONS FOR HALLOWEEN: Projects and Activities Inspired by My Books

Giraffe Skeleton.

Halloween is the perfect time to learn about skeletons. I was delighted to see how a class of fourth graders created animal skeletons with pasta after reading the books in my Morrow animal series. Each student chose a different animal, gluing the pasta pieces onto a dark piece of paper. There was a pasta shape for every bone!

Snake skeleton.

To learn about human skeletons they read my book  Your Skeletal System (Lerner). The book is also available in Spanish, El Sistema Oseo. Both books are available online as e-books.