EL NINO--WHEN THE WEATHER GOES WACKY! Look for my El Nino book on Amazon

El Nino is coming! You can learn more about this powerful weather phenomenon and how it may affect you in my book El Nino: Stormy Weatherfor People and Wildlife.  You can find the ebook on Amazon and read it for free if you subscribe to KindleUnlimited or you can download it for $5.99. Used copies of the hardback, paperback and audio versions are also available at Amazon.

Drought in Southeast Asia, brutal storms in Australia, and spring-like temperatures in the northeastern United States--all of these seemingly unrelated events are caused by El Nino. Disrupting weather all over the globe every three to seven years, El Nino is second only to the change of the seasons in its influence on the climate.
El Nino is the name given to the unusual increase in ocean temperatures along the Peruvian and Ecuadorian coasts that is part of a larger pattern of changes in wind and weather throughout the Pacific region and beyond. With El Nino come violent storms and upsets in the global food chain that dramatically affect both humans and wildlife.
With the use of photographs, charts and maps, this updated edition of El Nino: Stormy Weather for People and Wildlife makes clear how this remarkable weather pattern is formed, how scientists track it, what its effects are, and why following its path is of such importance.

El Nino: Stormy Weather for People and Wildlife was originally published by Clarion Books in 1998.

EL NINO: Stormy Weather for People and Wildlife, Now available as an E-Book

My book, El Niño: Stormy Weather for People and Wildlife is now available as a Kindle book on Amazon. For readers age 10 and up.

Drought in Southeast Asia, brutal storms in Australia, and spring-like temperatures in the northeastern United States--all of these seemingly unrelated events are caused by El Niño. Disrupting weather all over the globe every three to seven years, El Niño is second only to the change of the seasons in its influence on the climate.
El Niño is the name given to the unusual increase in ocean temperatures along the Peruvian and Ecuadorian coasts that is part of a larger pattern of changes in wind and weather throughout the Pacific region and beyond. With El Niño come violent storms and upsets in the global food chain that dramatically affect both humans and wildlife.
With the use of photographs, charts and maps, this updated edition of El Niño: Stormy Weather for People and Wildlife makes clear how this remarkable weather pattern is formed, how scientists track it, what its effects are, and why following its path is of such importance.

Originally published by Clarion Books as a hardback book in 1998, El Nino: Stormy Weather for People and Wildlife is an Accelerated Reader book. You can look for it in your library.

The Writing Process: Beginnings and Endings

    Beginnings: The beginning of your book creates the first impression.  If you don’t grab your reader’s attention on the opening page, it doesn’t matter what else you say. In the opening of your book, you want to make the reader eager to find out more.  At the same time you establish your tone, style and the level of complexity.  You are telling the reader what to expect.   There are many ways to start a book, but I like to set a dramatic scene that pulls the reader in and then tells what the book is going to be about.  Here’s the beginning of my book, El Nino, Stormy Weather for People and Wildlife:
    For nine straight days in January 1995 rain poured down on the usually sunny state of California, causing floods, mud slides, and power outages.  During the same period on the opposite coast flowers began to sprout, bears woke up from their winter naps, and people wore shorts as unusual springlike temperatures warmed the air.  Both of these atypical weather events were due to El Nino, a powerful tropical ocean current that periodically disrupts weather all over the globe.
     Endings: The final paragraph of the book is your opportunity to leave the reader with one last impression.  Endings are always hard to write, but in the same way that the opening of the book told the reader what to expect, the ending tells the reader what he or she just learned. In all my books I like to end with a thought that places the topic of the book in a larger context.   Here is the final sentence of El Nino:
   As scientists find out about El Nino, La Nina, and the Southern Oscillation, they are learning how ocean warming that begins in the tropical Pacific is one of the most important keys to understanding the earth’s weather.

   (El Nino: Stormy Weather for People and Wildlife (Clarion, 1996 and 2000) can be found in your library and online.)