Once Upon a Tiger: New Beginnings for Endangered Animals
Once Upon A Tiger is the eBook winner of the 2011 Green Book Festival!
I wrote Once Upon a Tiger to get kids thinking about endangered animals. If kids start wondering about their favorite animals, imagining silly pourquoi-poems about how they came to be—how the tiger got her stripes, or why the Sumatran rhinoceros is such a solitary creature, hopefully the end for these animals will be pushed away.
This conservation theme also provided a reason for making this an ebook only; while I love paper books and usually prefer a paper format for illustrated books, I feel that reading certain books in a digital-only format benefits the environment.
Illustrated by Sladjana Vasic
Available at Amazon.com
Available at BN.com
Here are a few websites that will help educate kids about endangered animals:
WWF (also known as the World Wide Fund for Nature or the World Wildlife Fund):
www.worldwildlife.org
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a group with a Red List of Threatened Species that you can find at:
www.iucn.org or www.iucnredlist.org
Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA):
www.aza.org
And here’s a neat idea—invite an author to your school and make a difference!
http://www.authorsforearthday.org/
Note: A portion of the profits from sales of Once Upon A Tiger will be donated to charities that help endangered animals. Please spread the word about us, and we’ll have more money to donate!
Read more about this book at Authors for Earth Day and TeachingBooks.
Leatherback Sea Turtle
by Janet Wong
The First Big Turtle Race:
Leatherback said,
“This suitcase
of heavy shell
is weighing me down.
Swimming
six thousand miles
I’ll probably drown
with this thing on.”
So he chucked it—
gone—
with a flip of his fin.
And sleek Leatherback
went on to WIN!
Copyright ©2011 by Janet S. Wong. All rights reserved.
Asian Elephant
by Janet Wong
Elephant chose
to play with his nose,
a hose of a nose
which he used to soak
poor little Monkey,
who coughed
and choked
and decided
to play a trick on him.
While Elephant dozed,
Monkey climbed in,
into his trunk,
which shrunk
and shrunk.
What bad luck!
Monkey was stuck—
stuck in an Elephant’s nose!
And that’s where he stayed,
which Elephant found
rather handy
(he once was a klutz).
Now he can crack
a noseful of nuts,
scratch an itch,
draw with sticks,
pinch ripe mangoes
wherever he goes—
he loves
those fingers in his nose!
Copyright ©2011 by Janet S. Wong. All rights reserved.