The Lady Hermes

My family started visiting Captiva Island on the Gulf Coast of Florida when Lizzy (seen in the photo below) was about three years old. Our hosts have been three of the sweetest guys you'll ever meet, the Jensen brothers, John, Dave and Jimmy, (John is absent from the picture for everyone needs a day off – right?) They run the Jensen's Twin Palm Cottages and Marina, which is where you can enjoy the Florida as it used to be and still should be.

When we first went to Sanibel and Captiva seeing an alligator was a rare event. In fact, they were an endangered species. This made me sad, not because they are cute and cuddly, but maybe because I was born and raised in the Deep South, swamp water may run in my veins.  Who knows? But I started researching the plight of alligators, and noticed that over the years, they seemed far more plentiful in our part of Florida. The conservation measures that had been enforced over the years had worked. 

People say, “He’s my right hand man,” meaning someone I couldn’t do without. I didn’t realize how true this was until I had basal joint reconstruction on my right thumb in November. The surgery went beautifully, the surgeon was delighted, but I had no idea how disabling it would be to have a cast from fingertips to elbow.

I never realized how right-handed I was until I tried drawing with my left hand. I also found out that if Geronimo could sign his name with an X, I could, too.

So that’s why you haven’t heard from me for a while. I’ve made progress however. I now go to hand therapy twice a week and have graduated from a hard cast to a custom splint. So I expect to be back in the saddle by March.

I hope my friend and fellow illustrator Carolyn Croll (illustrator of SWEET POTATO PIE, which I wrote,) will read this.  She’ll understand why it makes me think of her and send her good wishes.

A few nights ago I went to an art opening at our newly renovated Byram Schubert Library, which has a spacious and beautiful gallery.  The show was huge, and the artist being honored was my middle child, Lizzy Rockwell, who is an illustrator.  There were plenty of visitors, framed pictures everywhere, good nibbles, old friends, and it was a festive evening.  So if you happen to be in the neighborhood of Greenwich, Connecticut, head for this wonderful branch library and check the show out.

Lizzy, as her father was, is a wonderful naturalist-artist.  When I saw the images I’ve posted here, I was taken back many years into her childhood.

She was not quite three years old, and her sister, Hannah, was almost six.  We were spending the month of August on Block Island to escape the heat and smog of New York City.  At that time, Block Island wasn’t the trendy neo-Hamptons place it has become.  But it was on the main flyway for migrating birds, and apparently Monarch butterflies too.

When Paul Meisel and I did WHY ARE THE ICE CAPS MELTING? we realized that it couldn’t cover the huge subject of global warming in its entirety.  We felt other books were needed to expand the subject for children to offer them more to think about.  And one of the most urgent aspects of the problem is the contribution of carbon dioxide to global warming made in large part by the burning of fossil fuels.

As I child I was fascinated by fossils.  I still am.  Not only that, but a weekend  trip to a gas station on some lone highway in rural Mississippi was a treat for me.  I loved the smell of the stuff, and wished I understood the arcane language of the discussions my father always had with the gas station owner as soon as the hood of the car was opened, to check the oil, and whatever. So my new book with Paul, WHAT'S SO BAD ABOUT GASOLINE?, offered me a chance to learn about just what gasoline is, and how it is made from an infinite number of tiny fossils buried beneath deserts (which were once seas) and seas themselves.

It's strange that two biographies I wrote on two people who are American founding fathers, each in his own way, would appear in the same year, same month, by the same publisher. 

BIG GEORGE was to be published in fall of 2008 by Harcourt.  OPEN THE DOOR TO LIBERTY was to be published in January 2009, in time for Black History Month.  But because of the bizarre condition lately of book publishing Harcourt ended up being acquired by Houghton and the two became one.  I had a long history with Harcourt, and none with Houghton.

Everyone knows who George Washington is, but few people recognize the name of Toussaint L’Ouverture, the father of his country. There were three great revolutions in the 18th century, and each one impacted world history. The American Revolution, The French Revolution, and the Haitian Revolution.