Students often ask me, “what’s the best part of writing a book?” High on my list is meeting them—and seeing how my books inspire them in their own writing, guided by their brilliant teachers. Young writers at one elementary school in Maine recently created cool comic strips inspired by ancient creatures in my book Extreme […]
Wading in the icy waters of Maine’s Penobscot Bay one summer day, I spotted transparent creatures near the surface rippling with rainbow bands of light. I thought I was seeing things until a scientist friend told me that these thumb-long, otherworldly critters are called comb jellies. He explained that their namesake “combs” — rows of […]
Horseshoe crabs have blue blood that contains a special substance that clots around bacteria to prevent infection from spreading. Called LAL for short, it is used to test medical equipment for bacterial contamination. If you’ve ever had a shot, stitches, or surgery, you can thank horseshoe crabs for helping to keep you safe! Horseshoe crab […]
This “bear” is smaller than a grain of sand, but it’s super tough! Meet the water bear, or tardigrade, a tiny animal found on every continent–and maybe in your backyard! Tardigrades live in films of water on lichen and moss, as well as in ponds and in the ocean. If their moss clumps dry up, […]
Hear stories from Extreme Survivors: Animals That Time Forgot at Friend Memorial Library in Brooklin, Maine on Thursday, November 30, at 7:00 p.m. “Jurassic Park” meets “Animal Planet” in Kim’s new nonfiction children’s book, which explores the amazing lives of ten of the most ancient animal species on Earth. Stop by the library to meet […]
Kim will be signing copies of Extreme Survivors: Animals That Time Forgot at the Children’s Author Fest at the Strawberry Banke Museum in Portsmouth, New Hampshire on Saturday, November 4, from 11 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Stop by her table at the museum’s Tyco Visitor Center to discover the strange lives of goblin sharks, horseshoe […]
Kim will present “Go Wild: Nature Writing for Kids”on Saturday, October 21 from 10:00-10:45 a.m. at the Blue Hill Public Library as part of WORD: Blue Hill Literary Arts Festival. In this free program, kids will create their own mini-nature journals and get inspired to explore the wild world. This free program is geared to […]
Artist Rebekah Raye and I will talk about “frogsicles” and other amazing creatures in our picture book The Secret Pool on a Science and Children’s Literature panel on Saturday, March 21 from 3-4 p.m. at the Rock & Art Shop in Bangor. It’s all part of the Maine Science Festival, which features loads of cool […]
Two surprises popped out of a hole in the ice on a small roadside pond on Deer Isle as I drove by the other week: river otters! They didn’t seem to mind the cold and snow a bit as they frolicked on the ice and then dove back underwater. Winter is a good time to […]