Whale Fall Meet & Greet: April 22nd at Wellesley Books

Melissa Stewart and I will be having a “Meet & Greet” and signing books at Wellesley Books on Earth Day, Saturday, April 22nd at 2-3 pm. More Information.

Whale Fall: Exploring an Ocean-Floor Ecosystem (Hardcover)

By Melissa Stewart, Rob Dunlavey (Illustrator)

$18.99 ISBN: 9780593380604

Availability: On our shelves now. Published: Random House Studio - March 14th, 2023

ABOUT THE BOOK  

This fascinating nonfiction picture book filled with stunning illustrations details the end of life for a whale, also known as a whale fall, when its body sinks to the ocean floor and becomes an energy-rich food source for organisms living in the deep sea.

When a whale dies, its massive body silently sinks down, down, through the inky darkness, finally coming to rest on the silty seafloor. For the whale, it's the end of a 70-year-long life. But for a little-known community of deep-sea dwellers, it's a new beginning. First come the hungry hagfish, which can smell the whale from miles around. Then the sleeper sharks begin their prowl, feasting on skin and blubber. After about six months, the meat is gone. Year after year, decade after decade, the whale nourishes all kinds of organisms from zombie worms to squat lobsters to deep-sea microbes.

ABOUT THE CREATORS

Melissa Stewart has written more than 200 science books for children, including Tree Hole Homes: Daytime Dens and Nighttime Nooks; the ALA Notable Book Feathers: Not Just for Flying and the SCBWI Golden Kite Honor title Pipsqueaks, Slowpokes, and Stinkers: Celebrating Animal Underdogs. She co-authored 5 Kinds of Nonfiction: Enriching Reading and Writing Instruction with Children’s Books and edited the anthology Nonfiction Writers Dig Deep: 50 Award-Winning Authors Reveal the Secret of Engaging Writing. Melissa maintains the award-winning blog Celebrate Science and serves on the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators board of advisors.

Rob Dunlavey is the illustrator of In the Woods by David Elliott, which received three starred reviews, and Owl Sees Owl by Laura Goodwin, which garned four starred reviews and was named a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, among others. His artwork has been featured in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, Businessweek, and the Los Angeles Times.

The Rest on The Flight into Egypt

I enjoy reinterpreting subjects from the long arc of Art History. In this case we see the bedraggled Holy Family approaching a campsite in the desert. This theme, a family of persecuted refugees, interpreted by many famous artists allows for displaying one’s ability to draw and paint the following: figures in a landscape, donkeys, old men and young maidens baring their breasts in acceptable and holy fashion. And of course there’s the Christ child in his meek and mild mannered post Nativity normalcy. Being a refugee is hardly normal however. Please take note!

Stick people and a horse walk across a flat landscape at night. The stars shine.

The Night Heron

Night herons are real birds. This drawing however is from a specific memory of a heron hunting at low tide below the piers in Nantucket harbor. The world was getting ice cream and strenuously having a good time. Meanwhile, the heron focused on the mud for things to eat. What do you think of that?

Heat Wave Therapy

If you’re looking for a new way to forget the latest heat wave for a little while, try what I do: draw pictures of cold things, cold memories. My go-to is a snowy forest scene where the trees have their trunks sunk down in the snow. These are made with crayon or pastel. The snowy blue shadows might be colored pencil or watercolor. Have fun and stay cool.

Mysterious Landscapes

Paint first, Think later. This is a good way to get started. But sometimes we have to wait a very long time for something less sublime to staff the picture. When the people and critters fail to appear, I realize that this is the way God intended it. We are surrounded by silent and mysterious landscapes. If only we’d listen!

This reminds me of Gulfoss waterfall in Iceland.

Recent Crystal Cities paintings

I’ve said it before, “Crystal Cities are what I paint when I don’t know what to paint.” This is how I prefer to work: into the moment, reacting to my materials and methods, with the confidence that some useful meaning or justification will emerge. It’s a strategy and a form of self-interrogation that relies, somewhat comfortably on a limited set of artistic variables. They don’t teach this in art school! It is borne from necessity and makes its own mysterious path.

05-05-22a

05-05-22c

04-27-22b

04-27-22a

Don't You Wonder?

If one pays attention to the news, it seems that humans love to fight. So many do it. We all love a good fight. But just for once (and maybe forever), I’d like to know what we would talk about and do if we weren’t preoccupied with fighting and being mean to each other. Don’t you?

04-19-22b

War Theme

The war in Ukraine is close to all our minds and hearts. I try not to focus on it directly as if it were an illustration assignment to solve. But imagery arises easily when onion-domed Crystal Cities appear on my paper.

A crudely drawn couple embraces in front of a castle perched on a red hillside

A couple embraces on a precipice above old Odessa. Their home is a target.

The Glutton

Welcome to the Glutton’s home. His home is very large just like his appetite. You should know that he will try to eat you too. Now that would be something to see! Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Is Anyone Home?

Think of the resources marshalled to connect this castle with the distant shore: architects, masons, stone cutters and marine engineers. They built caissons and cofferdams and stationed barges with primitive cranes to hoist and position the carefully carved blocks. Did they have any idea how sublime the rising sun would look on this day? Reflect on the mind of a seagull: the sublime is the humdrum to them.

Bleak Birdy Business

I try to work quickly with my very limited imaginative and artistic resources. My process: 1. Deface the white paper with some color of some sort (pastels, watercolor, etc.) 2. Add birds or something to animate the scene. 3. Stand back and accept whatever comes out. 4. Don’t fuss and then move on.

Between Heaven and Hell

Prometheus or Pieta

Falling Birds

Sea Urchins

When traveling, I leave my paints at home and use colored pencils more. As usual, I was up early, this time in Brunswick, Maine at my mother-in-law’s. After brewing coffee for everyone, I settle in her favorite chair and look out the windows to her well-designed garden. And then the doodling begins.