My First Book

My mom did a fair job of keeping a record of my childhood, considering there were no digital cameras or personal computers when I was little. Recently we dug through a box of old papers: birth certificates, grade-school report cards, homework, etc. We found the very first book I'd ever written (and illustrated). I was five years old at the time (my mom wrote my age on the last page). The book is called The Fat Pollywogs. One day little pollywogs were caught by a little boy. His name was Robbie. [In the illustrations the pollywogs are in a jar, which is where I'd keep the ones I used to catch.] And my dad told me that pollywogs ate seaweed. And they ate and ate. And pretty soon the little pollywogs got fat. The End. I remember spending portions of my summers at Aqua Vista Campground in upstate NY. One of my favorite pasttimes was catching pollywogs in the many overflow basins connected to the camp's slow winding river (I'd find the occasional crayfish there too.) Apparently I was too young to make the connection that tadpoles eventually become frogs, because in my book they just got big and fat and that's where their progress came to an end. Maybe someday I'll discover that frogs become cats or something larger and more complex too. :) When we grow up we change beyond recognition, and yet interestingly we retain more than just our fingerprints and DNA. Thirty-three years after I created The Fat Pollywogs I'm still learning every day, still surprised by nature, still amazed by the diversity of life, and still writing about it in books. We become frogs, but we keep so much of our pollywog selves, don't we?