EYE SPY WHAT IF YOU HAD ANIMAL EYES?!

The newest member of the 

WHAT IF YOU HAD?! family is here!

THIS SERIES IS NOW AVAILABLE IN LIBRARY BINDING AS WELL AS PAPERBACK

I've been delighted to read Tweets and Face Book posts sharing how the books in this series are going beyond being fun informational texts. I'm hearing from teachers, librarians and media specialists that the WHAT IF YOU HAD?! books are favorite mentoring text for writing experiences. 

I LOVE knowing these books are inspiring children to write and be creative! 

Jen Rusin's class at Homestead Elementary in Aurora, Illinois

sharing WHAT IF YOU HAD ANIMAL EARS?! 

So I thought I'd jump in and share some ways to let WHAT IF YOU HAD ANIMAL EYES?! launch young writers. Here goes...

FAVORITE EYES

I have a favorite animal in each and every WHAT IF YOU HAD?! book. And my very favorite animal eyes are found on pages 14 through 15. Yes, I have my reasons why this animal's eyes especially appeal to me. It includes both the real facts about those eyes and the way Howard McWilliam, my super illustrator, brought my imagined use of those eyes to life with his art.

So now your challenge is to find your very favorite animal eyes in this book.  Write a convincing argument for why those animal eyes are truly the coolest in WHAT IF YOU HAD ANIMAL EYES?! And why you could enjoy claiming them as your own.





You might also want to write about which animal eyes you'd least like to have of all the examples in WHAT IF YOU HAD ANIMAL EYES?!

Teachers: Why not wrap this activity up by building a class bar graph for favorite animal eyes.  You could color in bars on paper. Or have everyone line up and physically be part of a favorite animal eye graph. 

I'd love to see your student-graph photos!

By the way... Here's a peek at an early stage of the book when the illustration is still a sketch. At this stage, I'm checking to be sure it's both fun and scientifically correct.




BLINK AND SWITCH



What if one kind of animal could claim another animal's 
eyes?! 


Imagine a dragonfly having colossal squid eyes? How might that help it hunt insects? How might having colossal squid eyes cause problems for a dragonfly?

Now imagine a tarsier having dragonfly eyes? How might that help it be an even better insect hunter? How might having dragonfly eyes cause problems for a tarsier?








Are there any animal eyes in WHAT IF YOU HAD ANIMAL EYES?! that might be even better for the llama than its very own eyes? Suggest an animal eye switch. Then come up with three reasons to make a strong case for that switch.

OUT TAKES

I start working on every book by brainstorming a long list of animal possibilities to include. Then, as I research, I weed out the maybes to come up with the very best candidates--ones that are both interesting, if possible haven't appeared in other books, and that readers will have fun imagining having themselves. 

In WHAT IF YOU HAD ANIMAL EYES?! there were three animals that stayed in the running right up to the final cut. 

Here are the three Eye Runner Ups:

Jumping Spider

Hippopotamus

Giant Panda

Read books and search on-line to find out more about each of these "Eye Runner Ups". Then pick one and create your own two-page spread for your choice. 

On the lefthand page, you'll need to briefly tell about that animal's eyes and what makes them special. Be sure to include a FACT. That's one extra bit of information about a way that animal's eyes are just right for it. 

On the righthand page, come up with a way it would be fun for you to have that animal's eyes. For extra fun, add a drawing of yourself doing whatever you imagined possible thanks to having that animal's eyes.


EYE HAD AN ADVENTURE!

It's story time! Children can either pick their own animal from WHAT IF YOU HAD ANIMAL EYES?! or pick the name of one of those animals from slips of paper in a hat.

The challenge is to imagine waking up one day and having that animal's eyes for one whole day. 

What adventure did you have? 

Did your animal eyes  help you solve a mystery? 

Did they help you be a hero? 

Did those animal eyes cause you any problems?

Write your story in three short paragraphs: 
1. One to launch what happens. 
2. One for the action in the middle.
3. One for the conclusion. 

Of course, illustrations are a nice touch. 

Teachers: Be sure to allow time for young writers to read their stories aloud. After all, WHAT IF YOU HAD ANIMAL EYES?! is meant to be read aloud so everyone can share the fun. These EYE HAD AN ADVENTURE stories are best shared read aloud too.

GOOD NEWS!! 

All of the books in the WHAT IF YOU HAD?! Series--even ANIMAL EYES--are now available in Library Binding. So they're ready to be read, and read, and read, and read, and READ....

TEN THINGS TO DO THIS SUMMER!

Okay, it's summer! So here are ten things to enjoy while it's hot, sunny and being outdoors is fun....

1.  Make something out of mud. Even better do it after it's rained. What is that mud like? How is different from dry dirt? Is there one way it's still the same? 

And then read Mud by Mary Lyn Ray with illustrations by Lauren Stringer.

2. Play flashlight tag in the dark. 

3. Go on a shadow hunt to find the following shadows. But take an adult along because grown-ups need to have fun too:

a. Find a shadow with a bright hole in it.

b. Find the biggest shadow you can. Figure out what made it.

c. Find the littlest shadow you can. Figure out what made it.  

And then Read Flashlight Night by Matt Forrest Esenwine and illustrations by Fred Koehler.

4. Fly a kite. But make one first. Here are sites with easy how-to instructions.

Easy Paper Kite

Kites For Everyone

How To Build Kites

And read The Emperor's Kit by Jane Yolen with illustrations by Ed Young

5. Make a FOOT painting. Sure, you've probably done fingerprinting. But have you ever painted with your feet? It will really let you STEP UP as an artist. Try mixing your own paints first. Here's some how-to sites to help you. 

 

How To Make Your Own Fingerpaint

Homemade Edible Fingerpaint

Homemade Fingerpaint

And read What If You Had Animal Feet?! by ME Sandra Markle with illustrations by Howard McWilliam.

6. Look at the world through a magnifying glass. Especially something you never thought to look at closely before. See anything that surprised you?  

7. Put on a puppet show with puppets you make yourself. Here's some sites with ideas to help you do just that.

Puppet Craft for Kids

How To Make Puppets

How To Design Hand Puppets

8. Learn one constellation you didn't know in the night sky. Find out what story people used to tell about it. Then make up a new story yourself.

Mmy favorite constellation is ORION. And here's a couple of sites with star stories, including ones about Orion.

Windows To The Universe

SkyServer

And read Zoo in the Sky: A Book of Animal Constellations by Jacqueline Mitton

Hope you have fun with these activities. And to share an adventure that happened one summer, Read Gasparilla's Gold by ME Sandra Markle :-)! Of course, any time you read one of my books it's like I'm right there sharing it with you.

HAPPY SUMMER!

THE STORY BEHIND THIRSTY, THIRSTY ELEPHANTS

So I’ll share a little known secret about me—I have a thing for elephants.

It goes back to my childhood, which you might find quirky if you knew I grew up in Fostoria, a small town in the middle of miles and miles of northern Ohio farmland. HOWEVER, when I was about ten years old Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus came to my hometown for one day.

AND they put up their tents in the field directly across the street from my house.

That meant the elephants marched from the train station past my house and spent the whole day, well from my point of view, visiting me. I definitely spent the day with them. I was intrigued.

Fast forward to the early days of my writing career. I was offered the opportunity to spend three days visiting Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus on tour while I worked on an article about world famous animal trainer Gunther Gebel Williams. Of course, I politely said, “YES!”

Besides his big cats, Guther’s animal troupe included elephants. I will never forget walking alongside him as he checked over and cared for his elephants. It was my first chance to see elephants up-close. And I learned they were gentle giants, clearly intelligent, constantly curious and genuinely elegant. I was impressed.

After that, I read all I could about elephants. I visited zoo elephants and nature park elephants. And along the way of my life’s journey, I became a mother with young children and a children’s nonfiction book author.

So, I shared my interest in elephants with my children and tucked elephants into my books wherever I could to share them with young readers. 

Although there are more examples, elephants make a guest appearance in Math Mini-Mysteries (Atheneum, 1993), which interestingly was my last all black and white children’s nonfiction book before publishers FINALLY became convinced children’s nonfiction could be full color. Elephants also slipped into Animals Marco Polo Saw (Chronicle Books, 2009) and became the one animal that makes repeated featured appearances in my WHAT IF YOU HAD?! Series (Scholastic).  

And thanks to the Scholastic books I had an opportunity to visit Baby Mike, a six-month old Asian elephant.

He made sweet baby elephant noises. And was intriguingly working on conquering using his trunk. When he reached out and wrapped his soft, wrinkly little trunk around my hand I was thrilled—that is right up until I discovered he was working on removing my ring and doing a good job of it. 

But by now my relationship with elephants had become truly personal. I was enthralled.

Fast forward to my being a grandmother because, well, time does pass. And while I’d written over two hundred books for children, I was still on the lookout for a new elephant story to share. Then I found it. Somewhere in the vast piles of research I do all the time there was a fascinating story about a herd of elephants that totally survived when other herds suffered serious losses during the worst drought to hit Tanzania’s Tarangire National Park in nearly twenty-five years. With some more digging, I tracked down Dr. Charles Foley who was in Tanzania studying the Tarangire’s elephant herds. I remember listening intently during our Skype visits as he shared the details of that surviving elephant herd’s story with me.

I was especially interested because the herd had a hero--the elderly herd leader named Big Mama. She was known to be at least thirty years old—possibly older—and was a grandmother. The drought was extremely hard on all the elephants in the Park but was hardest on the little calves because elephants need to drink water daily. Can’t go more than two days without a drink. Amazingly, when most of the reliable water sources in the Tarangire dried up, Big Mama led her herd out of the Park to another water source. Dr. Foley is certain that wasn’t chance. He believes Big Mama is old enough to have been a young elephant during the last terrible drought. And he’s convinced she led her herd to a water source she remembered from that past drought.

What a great story! What an amazing elephant! I knew I had to share Big Mama’s story with children. Happily, Charlesbridge agreed and I wrote it, pouring in the sights and the sounds of Big Mama and her herd as they struggled during the drought, searched for water—found a little wherever they could—and kept plodding on. Grandma elephant (Big Mama) led them on and on with determination, persistence, caring and courage. And, at last, brought her herd to WATER.

It was nearly two years after I first discovered the story in 2012 and began to dig into it that my research became Thirsty, Thirsty Elephants.

And as is often the case in illustrated books, producing the finished art required another two years. But I believe you’ll agree the pictures are gorgeous, marrying with the unfolding story to bring it fully to life.

Finally, on April 4, 2017, Thirsty, Thirsty Elephants became available for young readers. But there was a breath-holding moment just before the book went to press, I needed to update the Author’s Note about Big Mama. Because of her age, I was nervous as I reached out to Dr. Foley again to catch up and to ask about the elephant who had become dear to my heart. To my great joy, Dr. Foley assured me Big Mama was still alive and doing well. In fact, under her leadership her herd had grown to be forty elephants strong—one of the largest herds in Tanzania’s Tarangire Park.

I was delighted!

Are there more elephants to feature in my books? Are there more elephant stories to tell? I’m absolutely sure of it.

But--I love this one!

IS IT TOAD WEATHER YET?!

TOAD WEATHER is one of those books you can have fun reading more than one time.  So after you read it the first time, read it again and again as you have fun with these activities.

Compare and Contrast

Can you find ways things change for Ally during her rainy day adventure in TOAD WEATHER?

1.  How does Ally feel about a rainy day at the beginning of the story?
     And when she's walking home with Mama and Grandma at the end of the story?

2.  When she first gets outside, Ally starts to hurry.  How is this different from the way Ally walks through the puddles?

How does Ally walk while carrying toads across the street.

How does Ally walk when she's on her way home?

3.  Looking out the window at the beginning of the story, Ally thinks the rainy day is just gloomy gray. But outside, she thinks it's like being inside something colorful.

What is that something? 

Why does she think that?

What Happened When?

Ally discovered a lot of things during her TOAD WEATHER adventure. 

She counts five of them as surprises. 

List those surprises in the order they happened. 

Which one did Grandma think wasn't a nice surprise.

Its On The News

Pretend you are a television news reporter. Based on what happens in the story, write a TOAD WEATHER news report about this event.

Include a quote from Ally about what it was like to help the toads.

Include a quote from Grandma too.

Another Story

Ally isn't the only child who discovered the migrating toads. Look at the little boy and his mother on pages 18 and 19.  Now, write a short story about his adventure. Be sure to tell why you think this boy and his mother are outside on a rainy night. Did they come especially to help or just happen onto the scene?

From the picture, how do you think the boy feels about the toads?

Tell why you believe he did or didn't help the toads.

Toads Eye View

Now tell about this TOAD WEATHER night from one toad's point of view.














Make this a story about an American toad. That's the kind of toad featured in TOAD WEATHER.


Tell how the toad goes from its home in a nearby park to a reservoir on the other side of a busy street. Be sure to include real facts about these toads.  Find out more about American toads online at these websites.
BioKids: Critter Page about American Toads
Fairfax County Schools American Toad Page

Make your story an adventure by giving the toad a couple of close calls. A bird or a dog might almost catch it. It might almost get hit by a car before someone carries it across the road.

Extra Fun

And don't miss this website--Doug Wechsler Author and Photographer--American Toad. You'll see photos and learn about the stages an American toad goes through during its life.

It's a special site to visit after reading TOAD WEATHER because Dr. Doug Wechsler was one of the expert's who shared information and checked the facts included in this story.

Now, just for fun, draw lines on a white paper plate, dividing it into four parts. Then draw and color a picture of one stage of the American toad's life cycle on each part of the plate.

Egg

Tadpole

Toadlet

Adult

Then poke a pin through the center of the plate into a sturdy plastic straw. Spin the plate to see the toad's life cycle repeat over and over again--just as it does in real life.

RESEARCH GREAT LEOPARD SEARCH

I'm often asked  how I do the research for my books. So let me walk you through the research that led to THE GREAT LEOPARD RESCUE.

First, I have to tell you I LOVE what a detective job this is. You see, for me, it's all about tracking down and interviewing the key suspects--I mean people whose experiences or scientific studies are critical to the story. 

First, a news story caught my attention. Basically, it reported that there are only about 50 Amur leopards still living wild and free. I thought--OMG--that's like two classrooms of school kids--PERIOD! 

And, the story reported that because of this extremely small wild population, there was an effort underway to start a new wild population in Russia where these cats live. It would be a way to make sure, if anything happened to the existing population, there would still be wild Amur leopards.

That launched me into doing a lot of reading about Amur leopards: news stories on-line, scientific journals, pretty much anything I could find to dip my toe into the information sea to figure out what I didn't know. 

I'm sure that sounds crazy but I go into a book with just the seed of an idea. Then by beginning to dig into the topic I start to figure out what I don't know about it so I can map out what I need to find out. That's how I get to the heart of the story in order to share it. I feel like when I write I'm reading the book aloud to my reader--the two of us are brain-to-brain sharing the journey of the story. And that story primarily grows out of my interviewing a lot of different people each of whom contribute a piece of the puzzle that is the story.

The first interview for THE GREAT LEOPARD RESCUE was with Barbara Meyer in October 17, 2014. I'd discovered the Colchester Zoo in the UK had Amur leopards. When I talked to the zoo's public relation's person, she told me about Barbara, a photographer who had spent years at the zoo with special access to these big cats photographing them. Barbara offered my first "close-up" insights into the behavior of Amur leopards. 

And that led me to be sure of three things: 
1) these were amazing cats who deserved to exist wild and free.

2) I needed to talk to researchers who knew wild Amur leopards. I mean people who had actually spent time with them in the wild. They were the only ones who  could tell me about the Amur leopards roaming their native habitat in far northeastern Russia.

3) I wanted to know all the details of the plan to start a new wild Amur leopard population in Russia. 

CAN YOU SPOT THE LEOPARD?

Next up was an interview with Dale Miquelle who lives in Russia. 




No I didn't go there for real, although I would have loved this opportunity. But more and more mentally I travelled into Russia as I dug into the research for this book. And I did side research to learn about the trees, climate, terrain, seasons of the Amur leopard's home habitat. 

Back to Dale Miquelle--he first went to Russia in 1992 with the Hornocker Wildlife Institute to study Amur tigers (also called Siberian tigers). He moved on to a project on Amur leopards in 1994. Then he stayed and became director of the Russian Wildlife Society. In fact, he settled and married and made his home in Russia. As we talked, he flowed in and out of speaking English to me and Russian to others in his office. 

Dale was a wealth of information about Amur leopards, the Land of the Leopard (a national park created to protect the remaining leopard population), the Lazovsky Nature Reserve (site chosen for the introduced population), the politics of protecting wildlife in Russia, and he became my first gatekeeper.  By that I mean my research journey always really gets going when someone says to me, "You also need to talk to... And here's their contact information." 

I always finish my interviews by asking my key experts, like Dale, if they'll be an expert reader for my book to check what I'm sharing is absolutely accurate. I also ask if they have any photos to help bring the story to life. And I ask if can I contact them again, if I have more questions. Of course, as I go deeper into my research I always have more questions.

One of the people Dale connected me to was Darron Collins. He had worked with the World Wildlife Fund for a decade focusing on the Amur leopards. He was very tuned in and involved in the effort to found this new wild population. And he brought the place as well as the cats to life for me. I remember him saying, "I'll never forget standing on an exposed peak in Russia with my guide pointing out China in one direction and Korea in another. So this big cat lives in all three countries, making it the most diplomatically challenging wild animal on the planet."

WHOA!

Darron also talked to me about what it looked like and felt like to walk through the forests where the Amur leopards live--"on the Russian side it's much like being in the Appalachian forest in North Carolina." I'd lived in Asheville, North Carolina and hiked in those forests in all seasons. So I could see it, smell it, feel it.

And Darron talked about the Russian Zapovedniks which are big areas like national parks but totally set aside for wildlife. The only people allowed in are scientists and guards watching out for wildfires and for poachers (illegal hunters). 

Darron shared about studying Amur leopards using camera traps to "capture" them. He shared what he'd learned about the wild leopard's behavior, use of the forest, even their rare social interactions as males and females come together to mate, females raise young, and adults have chance encounters in the forest with other adult leopards. That mainly happens because the forests where these big cats live are fragmented due to logging and people building roads and even towns. Then Darron shared this chance sighting of a wild Amur leopard. 

"It was amazing. I was setting up camera traps and the guy I was with tapped me on the shoulder. I looked up and saw the cat. It's more like you've seen a ghost because it's so on the brink of extinction."

Another expert Dale Miquelle referred me to was John Lewis. He's the Director of Wildlife Vets International and he opened a key door into this story. That's partly because he was the person most in touch with those in Russia who were choosing the reintroduction site--the forested area where the new Amur leopard population would be launched. And he was closely involved in helping to make decisions about how Amur leopards would be introduced to live wild and free in this new location.

Over the better part of the next two years, John and I talked on a number of occasions about the reintroduction project. He also shared fascinating stories about the times he had the opportunity to be literally hands-on studying wild Amur leopards. 

That happened because people patrolling to protect those rare 50 Amur leopards noted where they saw tracks and scat (droppings). Then they put up camera traps in those areas to "capture" the cats on film. Where the photos recorded frequent Amur leopard traffic, they set leg snares--traps that would catch a cat without harming it. And John stood by with his team ready for action. As soon as and Amur leopard was caught, it was darted with a tranquilizer gun. 

Next, John and his team took over. They weighed the cat, measured it, took blood and tissue samples--checked everything possible about the cat's health. 




In addition to lots of  scientific information, John shared something more. He talked about actually getting to touch some of these rarest wild animals on the planet. 

John said, "Of course, there's usually a little moment during the whole procedure when I pinch myself and say, 'this is really cool.' Then I snap back into professional mode." 

Jo Cook was fascinating to talk to for another reason. Based in the U.K., her job is to keep track of all the Amur leopards in zoos anywhere in the world. She knows all about their health and their family history. Her job for this project was to choose which of the zoo leopards would travel to Russia to become the founding parents for the new population. The parents would go back to their zoo homes; their cubs would live wild and free.

This is a VERY IMPORTANT JOB. By the time I finished the book, the founding pairs had not yet been chosen. But how they would be chosen and how bearing and raising cubs to become the pioneers for the reintroduction program had been set. Be sure and check out how that program will work in my book THE GREAT LEOPARD RESCUE. It's fascinating!

There were more expert interviews--but I'll share just one more--Linda Kerley. She's the Amur Tiger and Leopard Project Manager for the Zoological Society of London. She had moved to Russia to study the tigers. 

Then she stayed to study Amur leopards. She married and worked with her Russian husband Michael Borisenko to continue those studies, using a creative approach. They trained dogs to track Amur leopard scat (droppings) in order to send it to scientists. Scat was easy to find during the winter when the ground was snow-covered. However, it was nearly impossible to spot in other seasons on the leaf-covered forest floor. But scientists needed to analyze this resource. They needed to learn what prey Amur leopards needed to be able to catch to eat in all seasons. That would help scientists and politicians work together to choose the site for the new wild population. 

Linda's story of training dogs for this unique job was fascinating. But the "WHOA!" moment was when one of her dogs actually met a big cat. 

"Our dog went up on a ridge, reached the top of this rock as I was climbing. I stopped and turned to talk to my husband when the leopard jumped our dog. My husband and I charged, yelling and--luckily--chased the leopard off. But that dog wouldn't track scat anymore. We were getting such valuable information from this project, though, that we couldn't stop. So we started working with another dog."

Now you have a little behind-the-book insight into the research journey I traveled for THE GREAT LEOPARD RESCUE. Every book is a new journey of discovery--a fresh opportunity to connect with amazing on the front line of discovery researchers.

I do LOVE researching my books--love sharing what I discover with young readers.