Zucchini Out West Page 11
Billy’s teacher said his report was excellent. She told him she had an idea. If he thought it would be fun, she wanted to write to Defenders of Wildlife to see if they would like Billy to write a column for children in their magazine. Billy liked the idea.
I could find out about a lot of things and write about them, he thought.
Possibilities filled his mind. He could learn about how the biologists were training the ferrets for reintroduction; about how they were trying to save the peregrine falcon and the spotted owl and the wolf; he could go on a survey with Tom Campbell; maybe he could even go to Yale University and interview Tim Clark.
That afternoon Billy put Zucchini in the hood of his sweatshirt and took him to Oppermans Pond. It was a warm April day. Billy walked through the welcoming pine forest to the edge of the pond where the spring flowers were just coming up. He sat down on his favorite rock, lifted Zucchini out of his sweatshirt hood, and set him down at his side. Zucchini breathed in deep. The sunlight reflected off the pond, and all was still.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Dr. Tim W. Clark; Thomas M. Campbell III; Dr. Tom Thorne; Jack Turnell; Lou Hanebury; Bob Oakleaf; Don Kwiatkowski; and Bob Edgar. Without their help this book could not have been written.
About the Author
BARBARA DANA, an actress as well as an author, was born in New York City. She is the author of several previous novels for children and young adults, including Zucchini, the first book about Billy and his pet ferret. Zucchini received the 1984 Washington Irving Children’s Book Choice Award, the 1986 Maud Hart Lovelace Award, and the Land of Enchantment Award for 1986–87. Her book Necessary Parties, for older readers, was a 1986 ALA Best Book for Young Adults and was later made into a successful television drama. Ms. Dana has appeared often on television and in several films and plays. Young Joan, her novel about the young Joan of Arc, grew out of her starring role in a production of Joan of Lorraine. She and her husband, actor-director-author Alan Arkin, live in Connecticut and Nova Scotia. They have three sons.
LYNETTE HEMMANT was born in London and spent her childhood in south Wales and Australia before returning to London. She went to art school at fifteen. After many years as an illustrator, she started etching, then painting landscapes. She particularly loves painting the English countryside and gardens but also works in Italy, often in Venice. With her husband and a cat, she lives in a two-hundred-ten-year-old house in southeast London.
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Other Books by Barbara Dana
RUTGERS AND THE WATER-SNOUTS
CRAZY EIGHTS
ZUCCHINI
NECESSARY PARTIES
YOUNG JOAN
Copyright
Zuchini Out West
Text copyright © 1997 by Barbara Dana
Illustrations copyright © 1997 by Lynette Hemmant
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © OCTOBER 2010 ISBN: 978-0-062-03602-5
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dana, Barbara.
Zuchini out West / Barbara Dana; illustrations by Lynette Hemmant.
p. cm.
Summary: Ten-year-old Billy suspects that his pet ferret Zucchini may be a black-footed ferret, one of the rarest mammals in the world, and takes him on a trip through the West to meet the handful of black-footed ferrets known to exist.
ISBN 0-06-024897-1. — ISBN 0-06-024898-X (lib. bdg.)
[1. Black-footed ferret—Fiction. 2. Ferret—Fiction. 3. Pets—Fiction. 4. Endangered species—Fiction. 5. Rare animals—Fiction. 6. West (U.S.)—Fiction. 7. Voyages and travels—Fiction.] I. Hemmant, Lynette, ill. II. Title.
PZ7.D188Zw 199796-28976
[Fic]—dc20CIP
AC
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FIRST EDITION
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