LIFE-SIZE CALIFORNIA CONDOR MODEL: Projects and Activities Inspired by My Books

Life-size California condor model.

During my nearly fifty years as a published author I have visited hundreds of schools to talk about my books and what it is like to be an author. I am always impressed by the creative projects teachers have done with their students in connection with my books. When kids do these projects it reinforces the concepts of the book and expands their impact. 

Over the next several weeks I will share some of my all-time favorite book related projects on this blog.

Life-size condor model:

The California condor is the largest flying bird in North America and has a wingspan of more than 11 feet. A third-grade class made this impressive life-size model with construction paper. Every single feather was cut out separately and glued on. Condor facts are displayed above. I'm sure that the students will remember creating the condor, long after my visit to their classroom. 

You can learn about the California condor and the efforts being made to save it from extinction in my book ON THE BRINK OF EXTINCTION: The California Condor, available as an ebook on Amazon.

MEMORIES OF MY CONDOR BOOK, Photo at the Los Angeles Zoo

L-R: Los Angeles Zoo Director, Betty White, Caroline Arnold, GLAZA President, Michael Wallace. At the Los Angeles Zoo, 1993.

In 1993 I published my book ON THE BRINK OFEXTINCTION: The California Condor, illustrated with photos by Michael Wallace, then the director of the condor recovery program at the Los Angeles Zoo. At the time, fewer than one hundred condors remained in the wild. The only hope to increase their numbers was to raise them in captivity and then release them into the wild. My book chronicles that process. Today there are more than five hundred flying free in the wild!

My friend Brenda Scott Royce, editor of Zoo Magazine, recently shared this photo with me that she discovered in their photo archive. In it I am celebrating the publication of the book with Mike Wallace, zoo supporter Betty White, the President of GLAZA, and the zoo director. It brought back many memories of that project. The book has long been out of print, but you can still find it in libraries. Condors are magnificent birds, with the widest wingspan—more than nine feet!—of any land based bird in North America. If you are lucky, you might see one soaring high over the mountains, forests, and coast of California, or perhaps over the Grand Canyon in Arizona and other places where they have been reintroduced into their historic territory. 

On the Brink of Extinction: The California Condor (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1993)