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World Turtle Day is celebrated on 23 May every year since its inception in 2000. The American Tortoise Rescue sponsors this day of awareness to bring attention to one of the world’s oldest reptiles, and encourage humans to help in the conservation and protection of these grand animals. In honour of these grandiose creatures, we have compiled a reading list of biology titles and articles that have helped to further research into the conservation biology of all chelonians.

The post World Turtle Day: a reading list appeared first on OUPblog.

GALAPAGOS GEORGE is the story of the famous Lonesome George, a giant tortoise who was the last of his species, lived to be one hundred years old, and became known as the rarest creature in the world. This incredible evolution story by renowned naturalist and Newbery Medal winner Jean Craighead George gives readers a glimpse of the amazing creatures inhabiting the ever-fascinating Galápagos Islands, complete with back matter that features key terms, a timeline, and further resources for research.

Here are some Common Core objectives that GALAPAGOS GEORGE can help meet:

Identify the main purpose of a text, including what the author wants to answer, explain, or describe. Use information gained from the illustrations and words in a book to demonstrate understanding of its characters, setting, or plot. Describe the overall structure of a story, including describing how the beginning introduces the story and the ending concludes the action.

And you can use the following questions to help start a specific discussion about this book or a general discussion about informational texts and/or literature:

1. How does a reader determine the genre of a particular book? What characteristics apply to GALAPAGOS GEORGE? RI.2.5, RL.2.3
2. What elements of a book help the reader determine the main idea? What details support the main idea? RI.2.2, RL.2.2
3. How do the illustrations contribute to the text (characters, setting, and plot)? RI.2.7, RL.2.7

GALAPAGOS GEORGE will be available next week!

Made from 20 Business cards a client sent in.

Does a Tortoise have a tail?  Google says yes and no. - so which is it?

I'd never realized before that swamps seem to be one of my favorite settings for paintings until I started thinking about today's Illustration Friday topic. I discovered I have a number of paintings set in the swamp, so I thought I'd cheat a little bit and drag another one out from the archives. If you've been to my website, then you've probably already seen this and if you haven't, then it'll be brand new to you!
This painting is available as a print on my Etsy shop.

This topic seems unusually appropriate to me since only just a couple weeks ago we visited the Heard Natural Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary where there's a beautiful wetlands trail:

I'm glad I found some local inspiration for future set-in-the-swamp paintings!

I’ve recently been going through the UK’s daily papers and finding one or two weird news items and giving you links to them but I’m now finding myself in a position where I can’t keep up with the weird and wonderful so I’m trying a change of tack and just give you a brief rundown of what I found intriguing or amusing!

Here’s my top four for today.

Image by Jim Linwood via Flickr

I was checking out the Daily Telegraph and came across something particularly odd.  It seems that, in order to try and keep swine ‘flu at bay in H M Prison The Verne in Dorset, the governor sanctioned the purchase of a goodly supply of anti-bacterial hand gel.  As soon as it was distributed amongst the prisoners apparently one of the inmates decided it’d be a good idea to drink it rather than shove it on his hands.  I’m not sure how much the prisoner actually drank but he became a tad tiddly and started a fight.  Before anyone knew it, there was a full blown behind bars brawl.  Oddly enough, the staff at the prison took away what remained of the hand gel, presumably considering it would be easier to deal with a swine ‘flu epidemic than an alcohol poison one!

It just begs the question, who was the prisoner who actually tried the hand gel in the first place?  I’m just wondering what I’ve got under the kitchen sink that I could try?  How about a Mr Muscle Margarita for starters?

The second news item that interested me was again from the Daily Telegraph.  It gave details of some of the strangest items that had been taken from hotel rooms.  Amongst those that caught my eye were a marble fireplace; a whole room – the contents were completely stripped; a mounted boar’s head; a hotel owner’s dog; a grand piano and a selection of sex toys. 

Once again, my brain went into overdrive, particularly when it came to the sex toys.  I can’t  imagine even using sex toys provided by a hotel let alone stealing them – you don’t know where they’ve been!!

Image via Wikipedia

My next story which was reported in several papers, relates to a tortoise that was found walking along the M25 motorway (freeway).  Thankfully, for once, most of the drivers were obviously keeping their eyes on the road and the tortoise was rescued by a tortoise loving driver who, having taken a little detour to the supermarket to pick up some lettuce and tomatoes for the traumatised turtle and then took him for a check up at the local vet where it was discovered that he was chipped so hopefully owners and family pet will soon be reunited.

Quite what the tortoise was doing on the M25 I have no idea.  Maybe, like many travellers before him, he couldn’t find the right junction off the circular motorway to reach home or another alternative could be that he’d been visiting The Verne Prison and had a drop too much of anti-bacterial hand gel!!!

And finally, what would you expect a badger to eat?  I’d always considered they spent their evenings rummaging around the woodlands looking out grubs, insects, worms and the odd mouse or two but it seems it’s now been discovered that the latest badger delicacy is hedgehog.  How can a badger who normally eats small and relatively ’smooth’ food cope with the prickles?  What motivates a badger to even consider tackling a hedgehog.  Maybe their lives are so mundane that they decided they wanted more of a challenge.  It’s a mystery to me but I’m sure that some night wildlife watcher will come up with a bit of video footage to enlighten me!

I’ve recently been going through the UK’s daily papers and finding one or two weird news items and giving you links to them but I’m now finding myself in a position where I can’t keep up with the weird and wonderful so I’m trying a change of tack and just give you a brief rundown of what I found intriguing or amusing!

Here’s my top four for today.

Image by Jim Linwood via Flickr

I was checking out the Daily Telegraph and came across something particularly odd.  It seems that, in order to try and keep swine ‘flu at bay in H M Prison The Verne in Dorset, the governor sanctioned the purchase of a goodly supply of anti-bacterial hand gel.  As soon as it was distributed amongst the prisoners apparently one of the inmates decided it’d be a good idea to drink it rather than shove it on his hands.  I’m not sure how much the prisoner actually drank but he became a tad tiddly and started a fight.  Before anyone knew it, there was a full blown behind bars brawl.  Oddly enough, the staff at the prison took away what remained of the hand gel, presumably considering it would be easier to deal with a swine ‘flu epidemic than an alcohol poison one!

It just begs the question, who was the prisoner who actually tried the hand gel in the first place?  I’m just wondering what I’ve got under the kitchen sink that I could try?  How about a Mr Muscle Margarita for starters?

The second news item that interested me was again from the Daily Telegraph.  It gave details of some of the strangest items that had been taken from hotel rooms.  Amongst those that caught my eye were a marble fireplace; a whole room – the contents were completely stripped; a mounted boar’s head; a hotel owner’s dog; a grand piano and a selection of sex toys. 

Once again, my brain went into overdrive, particularly when it came to the sex toys.  I can’t  imagine even using sex toys provided by a hotel let alone stealing them – you don’t know where they’ve been!!

Image via Wikipedia

My next story which was reported in several papers, relates to a tortoise that was found walking along the M25 motorway (freeway).  Thankfully, for once, most of the drivers were obviously keeping their eyes on the road and the tortoise was rescued by a tortoise loving driver who, having taken a little detour to the supermarket to pick up some lettuce and tomatoes for the traumatised turtle and then took him for a check up at the local vet where it was discovered that he was chipped so hopefully owners and family pet will soon be reunited.

Quite what the tortoise was doing on the M25 I have no idea.  Maybe, like many travellers before him, he couldn’t find the right junction off the circular motorway to reach home or another alternative could be that he’d been visiting The Verne Prison and had a drop too much of anti-bacterial hand gel!!!

And finally, what would you expect a badger to eat?  I’d always considered they spent their evenings rummaging around the woodlands looking out grubs, insects, worms and the odd mouse or two but it seems it’s now been discovered that the latest badger delicacy is hedgehog.  How can a badger who normally eats small and relatively ’smooth’ food cope with the prickles?  What motivates a badger to even consider tackling a hedgehog.  Maybe their lives are so mundane that they decided they wanted more of a challenge.  It’s a mystery to me but I’m sure that some night wildlife watcher will come up with a bit of video footage to enlighten me!

"retold" and "illustrated" by Barry Downard Simon & Schuster Put. The Photoshop. Down. Seriously, this is one of the most atrociously illustrated books I've seen in a stretch. Retelling the Aesop Tortoise and Hare fable what we have goes beyond the usual anthropomorphic animals, it actually grafts human features like eyes, lips, hair and teeth onto the animals to create a creepy Island of Dr.

The winners of the 2006 L.A. Times Book Awards were announced last night. They went though all of this boring stuff before they got to the young adult winner. In fact, young adult was the absolute last category listed. That blows. I mean isn't YA lit more important that Biography or Current Events? Okay, maybe I'm biased. Anyway, here were the finalists:

Young Adult Fiction:
M.T. Anderson, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume 1: The Pox Party (Candlewick Press)

Coe Booth, Tyrell (Push / Scholastic)

John Green, An Abundance of Katherines (Dutton Books / Penguin Young Readers Group)

Meg Rosoff, Just in Case (Wendy Lamb Books / Random House Children's Books)

Nancy Werlin, The Rules of Survival (Dial Books / Penguin Young Readers Group)

And the winner is........

COE BOOTH for Tyrell. I don't know Ms. Booth, but I do know Lisa Graff, author of The Thing About Georgie (here's my blog review) and one of the other Longstocking authors. This bunch of female blogging MG/YA writers has found tons of success these past few years. You can read all about their thoughts, ideas, and accomplishments here. This is one of the blogs I follow and I enjoy it a whole heck of a lot.

Congratulations Ms. Booth (may I call you Coe?) and all of the other fabulous authors who were recognized!