January 2010 Archives

Monthly Archives: January 2010

Jan

2010

New York Transit Museum Event

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Reading to the crowd inside the subway car

This past weekend I presented Redwoods at the New York Transit Museum. The Transit Museum’s main attraction is their collection of old subway cars (which are really cool) and I got to read the book to a crowd of parents and children in one of them.

Drawing dinosaur-land!

After the reading, we did an art project. In Redwoods, the main character’s world changes outside the subway car window as he reads the book. For our art project the children suggested ideas for things that they might see outside a subway car window (imaginary, of course) and I drew their ideas to a piece of paper taped over the subway window. On our trip, we went to dinosaur-land. There were volcanoes, a stegasaurus, palm trees, the requisite T-Rex and a time-traveling robot. Thanks to the Transit Museum and everyone who attended–I had a great time!

You can see more pictures of the event on the Transit Museum’s Flickr Album.

Categories: Books, Redwoods Tagged: Book Signing, New York Transit Museum, Press, Redwoods

Jan

2010

Redwoods an ALA Notable Book

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Redwoods made this year’s American Library Association Notable Book list! Here’s a description of the notable book criteria from the ALA website:

Each year a committee of the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) identifies the best of the best in children’s books. According to the Notables Criteria, “notable” is defined as: Worthy of note or notice, important, distinguished, outstanding. As applied to children’s books, notable should be thought to include books of especially commendable quality, books that exhibit venturesome creativity, and books of fiction, information, poetry and pictures for all age levels (birth through age 14) that reflect and encourage children’s interests in exemplary ways.

Categories: Books, Press, Redwoods Tagged: American Library Association, Redwoods

Jan

2010

Redwoods as Carbon Banks

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A pioneering group of Californians is trying to turn forests that include redwoods into “Carbon Banks” according to NPR’s Morning Edition in a report filed this past November. The Conservation Fund‘s goal is to manage their forests in such a way that they increase the amount of carbon the forests absorb and retain. According to the report, it seems to be working:

The Conservation Fund calculates that over two years, its forest has soaked up an extra 350,000 tons of carbon. That’s roughly equivalent to taking 80,000 cars off the road for a year.

Turning forests into “carbon banks” may be an economically viable proposition. With the prospect of a climate change bill being passed this year, a carbon marketplace (where “carbon credits” can be traded) is looking very possible. When those regulations are in place, forests will have economic value beyond the price of their timber, and that’s what the Conservation Fund is banking on.

Listen to the full report on NPR.org

Category: Redwoods Tagged: Climate Change, Environment, Global Warming, Institute for Redwood Ecology, Redwoods

Jan

2010

Oh, how tiny our planet is…

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Right now I’m immersed in the world of coral reefs, but today my wife showed me this video, which was produced by the American Museum of Natural History. It shows our planet and it’s relation to other know objects in the universe–all to scale, and all in about 6 minutes. It gives a great perspective on how small our planet really is (and was welcome break from painting fishes!).