California Condor Release at Vermilion Cliffs in Arizona

On September 22nd, National Public Lands Day, four condors were released by the Peregrine Fund atop the spectacular cliffs in Vermilion Cliffs National Monument in northern Arizona. A friend was there and brought me a beautiful poster celebrating the event. She knew about my interest in condors from my book On the Brink of Extinction: The California Condor, which was written and published at the time of the first release of captive bred birds.The poster, now framed and hanging in my office, is a wonderful reminder of the success of the recovery program. Condors are still very endangered, but their numbers are increasing.

At the time I wrote On the Brink of Extinction (Harcourt, 1993) I worked with Michael Wallace, head of the Condor Recovery Program at the Los Angeles Zoo and whose photographs illustrate the book. Condors are now produced at The Peregrine Fund’s World Center for Birds of Prey in Boise, Idaho, the Oregon Zoo, Los Angeles Zoo, and San Diego Zoo Safari Park and then transported to release sites annually for release to the wild.
The historical California Condor population declined to just 22 individuals in the 1980s when the greater California Condor Recovery Program was initiated to save the species from extinction.  As of July 25, 2018 there were 85 condors in the wild in the rugged canyon country of northern Arizona and southern Utah and the total world population of endangered California Condors numbers nearly 500 individuals, with more than half flying in the wilds of Arizona, Utah, California, and Mexico.
The Arizona-Utah recovery effort is a cooperative program by federal, state, and private partners, including The Peregrine Fund, Arizona Game and Fish Department, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management’s Vermilion Cliffs National Monument, Grand Canyon and Zion national parks, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, and Kaibab and Dixie national forests among many other supporting groups and individuals.
For more information about California Condors in Arizona:
http://www.peregrinefund.org/condor

WATCHING DESERT WILDLIFE, Now Available as a Kindle Book

WATCHING DESERT WILDLIFE is now available as an e-book on Amazon Kindle. It was originally published by Carolrhoda Books in 1994 and is out of print. The cover has been redesigned and the text and photos inside the book have been updated. WATCHING DESERT WILDLIFE is illustrated with photos taken by my husband, Arthur Arnold, taken on many visits to the deserts of California and Arizona as well as to the high deserts in the Great Basin, where we had the opportunity to observe the richness of desert life up close. I am happy to have WATCHING DESERT WILDLIFE now available to new readers as an e-book. You can read it with a Kindle app on various devices (I use my iPad) or on your computer.

After a sudden spring rain, the flowers of a giant saguaro cactus bloom. Beneath the hot sun, a lizard flicks its tail and dashes for the shade of an overhanging ledge. Although the desert may seem to be a barren and lifeless place, it is full of plants and animals that have adapted to its harsh environment. In this updated edition of Watching Desert Wildlife, readers go on a guided tour of desert life and explore the fascinating ways in which plant and animals have come to survive in some of North America's driest and hottest places.

FESTIVAL OF BOOKS, Tucson, Arizona

Festival of Books, Tucson, AZ

I spent the weekend of March 12-13 as a participant in the fabulous Festival of Books in Tucson, Arizona, a literary extravaganza held on the campus of the University of Arizona and attended by more than 100,000 people. This was my first time at the festival and I was amazed at the sea of white tents spread across the campus with books, food, activities for kids, storytellers, entertainment, science projects and more plus dozens of talks and author panels held in adjacent auditoriums and classrooms.

With Jill Wadsworth, host and moderator of my Illustrator Studio workshop

All of my official events were on Sunday and were in the children’s area near the Education Building. I participated in two panels, conducted an illustrator’s workshop and did a book signing. I also had the opportunity to read to children on the Story Blanket. Throughout the day I was accompanied by my wonderful guide and host Jill Wadsworth, who made sure that I was in the right place at the right time and who moderated my art workshop.

With Tom Uhlman and Mary Kay Carson

My first panel was a discussion called Desert Science and Scientists, with author/photographer team Mary Kay Carson and Tom Uhlman, creators of many Scientist in the Field books, including books about bat scientists and national park scientists. We talked about the challenges of doing research and different approaches to writing for different age groups. It was moderated with good questions from Morgan Apicella.

Art project: putting stripes on the zebra

My next event was Illustrator Studio: Cut Paper Art Brings Animals to Life. After viewing a power point presentation of my technique the participants created their own cut paper art using my zebra template. Typically I do this project with kids, and I was surprised at the variations produced by a mostly adult audience. One person cut her zebra in half and another made a plaid zebra with orange stripes!
After my story blanket time I had a some time to wander around the festival on my own, which was a good opportunity to take a closer look at some of the children’s books and to listen to Sandy Ogelsby, a storyteller with wonderfully dramatic Native American animal tales.

With Cheryl Blackford and Glenda Armand

My last event was a panel, Publishing Do’s and Don'ts with fellow nonfiction authors Glenda Armand and Cheryl Blackford moderated by author Michelle Parker Rock. The room was full of aspiring children’s book authors who were eager to hear about our paths to publication.
The festival also included opportunities to meet and socialize with other authors, including a reception on Saturday evening at Gentle Ben’s restaurant followed by a dinner for the children’s book authors at Pastiche. The vast array of children’s programs was coordinated by Kathy Short and ran smoothly with the help of an army of cheerful and helpful volunteers. The executive director of the festival is Marcy Euler. It was a pleasure to be invited as one of the authors featured in this amazing event.

At the signing table in the book tent

Author Visit, Sunrise Drive Elementary School, Tucson, AZ

Sunrise Elementary School, Tucson, Arizona

A week ago I had an excellent author visit at Sunrise Drive Elementary School in Tucson, Arizona. I spoke to four groups of children from kindergarten through fifth grade and was pleased with the enthusiastic response to my presentation and the good questions at the end. At my last presentation of the day the students shared some wonderful art created after reading the books in my Day and Night series. 

Collared Lizard, from A Day and Night in the Desert

During one of my breaks I had a chance to tour the school and visit the huge school garden–perfect for Wiggle and Waggle!-- and to see some of the permanent art work decorating the walls of the building. Each graduating fifth grade class creates a legacy work as a permanent record of their years at the school. One of my favorites was a mural made of ceramic tiles depicting birds of the desert. During my program I measured the wingspans of the students as I always do, and, as always, everyone is amazed that it takes two students to be the wingspan of a bald eagle or two and a half to be a California condor. One place to see condors in the wild is in Arizona, in the Grand Canyon, where they have been introduced and have been successfully reproducing.

Ceramic Mural, Birds of the Desert

I thank Monica del Rincon for arranging my visit to Sunrise and Principal Andrea Davidson for introducing me at each of my programs and spending the day with me. And I especially thank the FFO of Sunrise for sponsoring my visit. I also thank the author visit coordinator of the Tucson Festival of Books, Cheryl Schrader-Gerken, for helping me make my connection with Sunrise. It was a very successful day!

Coloring Page: Desert 6:00 AM

Tap-tap, tap-tap! Tap-tap, tap-tap!
It is an early spring morning in the Sonoran desert. A Gila woodpecker drills a hole in a saguaro cactus. The tall plant will be a good place to build a nest. On the ground below, a coyote looks for a place to rest.
You can read more about plants and animals that live in the Sonoran Desert in my new book A Day and Night in the Desert. Find out which animals are awake during the day, and which animals are awake at night.

Click HERE to go to download the picture as a coloring page.

Author Visits in the Madison School District, Phoenix, AZ

At Madison Rose Lane Elementary School with Jahnvieve and Deborah Reker

I have spent the last week doing author visits at four schools in the Madison School District in Phoenix, Arizona: Camelview, Rose Lane, Simis and Madison Traditional Academy.  The first three are primary schools, grades K through 4 and Madison Traditional Academy has students through grade 8. (I presented to K-6.) At all the schools I did four presentations and also autographed books that had been ordered ahead of time.  I thank Deborah Reker, District Librarian, for doing a terrific job organizing my visits and helping to coordinate each day. And I also thank her hard working library team–Valerie, Jahnvieve, Vicky and Cotton-- for preparing the students at each school for my visit by familiarizing them with my books and organizing the book signings. At each school I received a warm welcome and an enthusiastic response to my program. I also thank my friend and super librarian Mary Wong for making the connections that made my visit to Phoenix possible. It was a busy but very successful week! 

Author Visit to All Saints Episcopal School in Phoenix, AZ

Yesterday I had an excellent visit at All Saints Episcopal School in Phoenix, Arizona. I gave three presentations in the Parish Hall to students in kindergarten through sixth grade as well as doing a visit to the children in the pre-kindergarten classroom. I was pleased with the good response to my program by both students and teachers. As always, the last part of my presentation was the time where the students could ask questions. I was impressed by the variety of questions. One of my favorites was “Did you stay awake at night to see the activity in the different habitats?” My answer:  In some cases, yes. Another question was, “Why did you organize the habitat books with each page at a three-hour interval?” My answer: Because that was what worked best for the length of the book. And another question: “Why do you illustrate your books with artistic pictures instead of photographs?” My answer: For one thing, because it is hard to take pictures of animals that are active at night!  There were lots of other good questions as well, but these questions showed me that the students had looked carefully at my new books in the Caroline Arnold’s Habitats series. 

I thank Librarian Jenny Oleksak for inviting me to All Saints and for doing such a good job of preparing the students for my visit and managing the book sale. I also thank the parents for their generous support and for the delicious morning coffee and lunch. I think it was a very successful day!