Brenda Z. Guiberson

As a child, Brenda Z. Guiberson never thought about being an author or illustrator but wondered how she might become a jungle explorer. Much of her time was spent swimming in the Columbia River, watching birds and salmon, searching for arrowheads, and building things or taking them apart. She was curious about many things and had a lot of patience for watching. In school, she loved science classes. But as she put herself through the University of Washington, it was easier to schedule evening English classes than afternoon science labs. She graduated with B.A. degrees in English and Fine Art. Her son brought home stacks of books for reading. When he went off to elementary school, she volunteered in the school library and classroom. All these kids and books got her interested in writing for children. After taking exciting trips that involved a fifty-foot cactus, hungry alligators and sunset-colored spoonbills, she wanted to create books for children that would be like a field trip. Early books includeTurtle People, Cactus Hotel and Spoonbill Swamp. Like all the books that followed, they are filled with dramatic detail that came from doing extensive research. Research, to her, is a great adventure. Finally she gets to be a jungle explorer. It includes talking to experts, looking through dusty collections and reading books. But her favorite part is getting out in the field. She has counted sea turtle eggs at 3 a.m. in Costa Rica, observed dancing flamingos on a salty island in the Bahamas, spent a night in a haunted lighthouse, kissed a dolphin on the snout, and watched graceful leeches swim in a boreal bog. All of this is part of an effort to create surprise, wonder and intrigue in her books. The other part of the effort involves revision, revision and more revision until the book flows with a sense of poetry blended with accurate information. Whether the research leads to emperor penguins, flamingos, or mummies, she finds stories of wonder, adventure and survival everywhere. They are in the connections between plants and animals, in the links between past and present, in every hot, cold, salty and wet environment from the biggest to the smallest creature.