Children’s Literature

From Endangered to Extinct

Posted by Sarah L. Thomson on Nov 12, 2021 in Animals, Children's Literature, Nonfiction | Comments Off on From Endangered to Extinct

John James Audubon Letters and Drawings, 1805-1892, MS Am 21 (31), Houghton Library, Harvard University

As I work on three books about endangered animals (elephants, frogs, and lions), I’m enthralled with delighted details about their lives–elephants are scared of bees, some frogs can glide from tree to tree, lions can’t purr but ocelots can. These are the little things that I hope will engage kid’s attention as much as mine, will hook them in and get them reading.

And sometimes I can actually forget how endangered these animals are and what a slim chance we have to create a world where they can thrive. Habitat destruction, invasive species, pollution, poaching–all the threats we hear about over and over.

And then I read an article like this on in the New York Times, about the 22 species of animal removed from the Endangered Species List–and not because their population numbers have recovered. Because they’ve been declared extinct.

It feels like a small thing, maybe too small, to write books that could get a new generation of conservationists to care, to hope, to act to keep a diverse world alive. But at least it’s one small thing I can do.

Goodbye to the ivory-billed woodpecker, once called the Lord God bird for its astonishing call. And to twenty-one more animals we will never see again.

A Frog in his Throat

Posted by Sarah L. Thomson on Sep 22, 2021 in Animals, Children's Literature, Nonfiction | Comments Off on A Frog in his Throat

One more delightfully odd frog: Darwin’s frog. The male swallows the fertilized eggs that his mate has laid and stores them in his vocal sac. (That’s the little sac inside the throat that blows up like a balloon to amplify the frog’s call.) They stay there for up to fifty days, until the eggs have hatched and the tadpoles have developed into tiny frogs. And then…

More New Things About Frogs

Posted by Sarah L. Thomson on Sep 10, 2021 in Children's Literature, Nonfiction | Comments Off on More New Things About Frogs

Because frogs are way more exciting than you think–here’s Wallace’s flying frog.

Does it really fly, you want to know? Well, no, it doesn’t. Other than the bat (the mammalian exception) true flight is at the present evolutionary moment confined to birds. (Long ago, there were reptiles in the sky too, but not today.)

Wallace’s flying frog glides from tree to tree in the rainforest. It can achieve a distance of up to fifty feet.

Frogs are AMAZING.

Frogs Research

Posted by Sarah L. Thomson on Aug 26, 2021 in Children's Literature, Nonfiction | Comments Off on Frogs Research

When I told my mom I was researching a children’s book about frogs, she was skeptical. How many books about frogs are there already? What could possibly be new and different?

I present to you…the Suriname sea toad. After the female lays the eggs and the male fertilizes them, he nudges them onto her back. Her skin grows up over the eggs. Each egg hatches in its own little skin pocket. The tadpoles develop into frogs there. And finally…they’re big enough to venture out into the world.

It’s horrifying to watch. See, mom?