What I learned in Grad School But Not in a Classroom

It’s time to get back to my early career in hopes that it will inspire other authors to keep at it no matter what. We learn from our experiences how best to communicate meaningfully with our readers.

Once I had two successful books, my writing life continued smoothly, with two to three books coming out each year, on nature topics I found interesting, all with Holiday House.

My Holiday House editor Ed and I saw some public interest around raccoons, with no kids’ book available. Lots of people had never hear of coatis, even thought they are quite common in the Arizona area. So we decided to include raccoons relatives as well.

Here’s a coati strolling along some tracks. You can see its similarity in size and form to raccoons. Credit Wikimedia/Mike’s birds (40627603912).

My experiences with raccoons were quite personal. During one summer, Greg and I were students at Friday Harbor Marine Laboratories on San Juan Island. The dining hall served lunch out-of-doors when the weather was nice. One day, two small raccoons strode along along the wooden fence that surrounded the deck while we ate. People couldn’t help but share bits of their meal with these apparently motherless two babies. They came back just about every day, and I began to worry about what they would do after summer school finished and almost everyone left. No lunch on the deck, no treats for the ‘coons. We stayed on to continue our research.

I shouldn’t have worried, as these animals are smart and inquisitive. Very soon after the summer session was over, they discovered the apartments where we lived. The twins would show up on our door mat, and of course we caved in and fed them. When I wrote my book about the raccoon family, I included these experiences in my book:

These raccoons expecially loved grapes. It seemed impossible to give them enough of then, and we always ran out of grapes before they ran out of appetite. Then one day the store had a special price on a big package of grapes which had fallen off the stems. As soon as we spotted the package we eagerly snatched it up, hoping that finally we could give the raccoons more of their favorite food than they could eat.

When the youngsters arrived, we put out a big pile of grapes. they went at them enthusiastically, picking them up one at a time, rolling each grape gently between their paws before eating it. After popping a grape into its mouth, the coon would lift its nose upward and chew loudly with its teeth showing. While they ate the grapes one at a time, the pile disappeared remarkably fast. But soon the animals began to slow down. Their stomachs were filling up, but there were still more grapes to be eaten. What a dilemma—their favorite food to eat, but no place to put it. At the end, one of the coons would pick up a grape and roll it slowly back and forth in its paws, over and over, eyeing it greedily. Then it would put the grape down, gazing at it as if wishing there were still stomach space available. Finally they waddled off, dragging their full stomachs as they went.

When the book came out, reviewers liked it, especially the personal touches I added because of my experiences with the raccoons. I realized something really important then—nothing beats personal experiences in bringing a subject alive. I made a vow that I would do whatever I could from then on to connect with my subjects personally. Since I loved to travel and have new experiences, this realization gave me ammunition to choose subjects I could “study” in person as much as possible from then on.