A Speedy read from Brian Rock!

Finally, we wrap up our book launch week with Brian Rock and his new book Which Animal is Fastest? This is a fun read; you may think you know the answer, but this book just may surprise you! So, let’s hear what surprised the author with a short interview.

Brian Rock

Carolyn Le

AP: What was your inspiration for writing this book?

BR: I just wanted to challenge my own assumptions. I had always heard that the cheetah was the fastest animal, but I wanted to check and see if that was really true. As I did my research, I realized that was only part of the story.

AP: How did you approach the research?

BR: We authors are so lucky in the internet age. Everything is right at your fingertips. But we must resist the urge to believe everything we find. So, as I searched online for fast animals, I would take whatever information I found and cross-check it against verified scientific journals and websites.

AP: Was there a fact that you found fascinating?

BR: I was completely blown away by the peacock mantis shrimp. The fact that its claws release faster than the speed of sound just amaze me. I was able to watch videos of the animal in action and it was still difficult to believe!

AP: What do you hope kids gain from reading this book?

BR: I hope kids learn an appreciation and respect for all God’s creatures. Nature is so diverse and beautiful, and everything shines in its own way. Also, I wanted kids to learn to challenge assumptions and realize that there is more than one way to look at things, even things that everybody says is true.

AP: When did you become interested in writing?

BR: I’ve been writing since I was old enough to hold a no.2 pencil. I used to write jokes, poems, and stories on long car trips and rainy days. I guess I’ve never grown out of that.

Learn more about the book and check out the great teaching resources too at arbordalepublishing.com. But don’t take our word that this is a great book, check out Book Worms for Kids review!!

It’s Hot! But Nature is Cool!

It’s no coincidence that we are sharing a book about summer on the Summer Solstice. That’s right, June 21 is the longest day of this year and therefore the day with the most sunlight. And what is the sun most known for? Keeping us warm, of course!

It keeps animals warm, too, which is a good thing when it’s cold outside. But what
happens when it’s hot? Animals can’t turn on the air conditioner or drink a cold glass of lemonade. A Cool Summer Tail explores how several animals adapt to hot temperatures. For instance, just like dogs, red foxes pant to dissipate their body heat because their skin doesn’t sweat like ours.

Did you know grey squirrels sometimes lick their forearms to cool off? This behavior has a similar cooling effect as sweating because when the saliva evaporates, their body heat is dissipated into the air.

Many birds stay cool by staying under the shade of tree leaves. This is one adaptation human animals can practice, too!

When the sun goes down at night, the temperature goes down, too. Some animals take advantage of the cooler air to find their food and move about. Imagine how our world would be different if humans slept during the day and were active only at night!

One way both humans and animals can stay cool is to take advantage of air blowing across our bodies. Whether it’s a lakeside breeze for a white tail deer or a circulating ceiling fan for humans, air helps dissipate body heat. While you are pondering this, make your own personal fan using the directions shared HERE by The Pinterested Parent.

Or make a paper plate mask of an animal featured in A Cool Summer Tail and encourage some pretend play. Directions HERE. While creating, discuss how animals adapt to summer heat and how these behaviors compare and contrast with how humans stay cool.

The next time you see an animal in its environment, take a minute to talk about how it adapts to the heat. Isn’t nature cool?

Carrie Pearson is the author of A Cool Summer Tail. The book is illustrated by Christina Wald. To investigate how animals stay warm when the temperature drops, check out another Arbordale book, A Warm Winter Tail, also written by Carrie and illustrated by Christina.

How Mountain Animals can chase off those Winter Blues

Thank you to author Kevin Kurtz for today’s blog post featuring a few mountain creatures and their ways to weather the winter! 

This winter, as you walk across the parking lot in your boots and winter jacket, be glad you are not a marmot. Like the other animals featured in my book A Day on the Mountain, marmots have to deal with a winter that may last from September until May. If you were a marmot, right now you would be in a state of hypothermia in a hole underneath a freezing rock, not really moving until you woke up some time in April.

Mountain animals must spend summer getting ready for the long winter. For marmots and black bears, this means getting as fat as they possibly can. They need to be fat in order to hibernate. Marmots pig out on grasses and flowers and black bears devour berries to build-up fat cells full of energy. When the mountain gets buried in snow, their bodies live off the energy in their fat until springtime.

Hummingbirds use a different strategy.  They spend the warmer months sipping nectar from the flowers that decorate mountain meadows. Then when the weather turns frosty, they do what pretty much every person over 70 in the northeast United States does: they head south for the winter. Instead of driving a minivan full of half their belongings down I-95, hummingbirds will fly their 0.2 ounce bodies hundreds, or even thousands, of miles to reach warmer climates during the winter.

One of the most amazing mountain winter survivors is the Clark’s nutcracker. During the summer, these relatives of jays and crows use their long beaks to pull seeds from pinecones. They eat some of them, but then fly around with the rest to bury tens of thousands of them all over the mountain. In the winter, they can remember the thousands of places they buried the seeds and dig them out from under the snow to get the food they need. I can’t even find the remote control in my living room half the time.

As extreme as our winters can seem, they do not match the winters animals on mountains must endure. Because the high elevation of mountains affects the temperature, these animals live in Arctic climates within temperate latitudes. So think of that the next time you are shoveling snow. At least you aren’t doing it to find pinecone seeds.

Do you want to learn more? Check out Kevin’s book A Day on the Mountain at Arbordalepublishing.com, then head to the coast with A Day on the Salt Marsh and into the sea with A Day in the Deep!