Anthony D. Fredricks Illustrated by Jennifer DiRubbio

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Near One Cattail

Have you ever explored a soggy-boggy wetland? A whole community of creatures lives there! And it really is a community. With a fistful of fun and fact author Fredericks and illustrator Jennifer DiRubbio have created another light-hearted, yet educational picture book this time featuring the animals that live together in wetland areas. No child will be able to resist visiting the local bog after reading NEAR ONE CATTAIL. The inspiration for these books came when Fredericks was visiting a school and a child asked: 'Are animal communities the same a people communities?' The question helped him to focus on the parallels between them. The importance for these books is that we may all be different but we also share commonalities too, Fredericks says. So it is in the animal world. When a group of animals has learned how to survive in a particular environment, that's called an ecosystem. They have established interrelationships and interdependencies with each other. So it can be with humans as well. A theme of this book is to show how a community works and functions effectively even when everyone is different. Ages 4 - 10