
Today is doomsday for a young Venezuelan Indian boy's beloved rain forest and its animal life—unless he and a visiting naturalist can save it. "George makes drama large and small out of the minute-by-minute events in an ecosystem . . . gripping ecological theater." —C. "An example of nonfiction writing at its best." —SLJ. Notable 1990 Children's Trade Books in Social Studies (NCSS/CBC) Outstanding Science Trade Books for Children 1990 (NSTA/CBC)
Author

Jean Craighead George wrote over eighty popular books for young adults, including the Newbery Medal-winning Julie of the Wolves and the Newbery Honor book My Side of the Mountain. Most of her books deal with topics related to the environment and the natural world. While she mostly wrote children's fiction, she also wrote at least two guides to cooking with wild foods, and an autobiography, Journey Inward. The mother of three children, (Twig C. George, Craig, and T. Luke George) Jean George was a grandmother who joyfully read to her grandchildren since the time they were born. Over the years Jean George kept one hundred and seventy-three pets, not including dogs and cats, in her home in Chappaqua, New York. "Most of these wild animals depart in autumn when the sun changes their behaviour and they feel the urge to migrate or go off alone. While they are with us, however, they become characters in my books, articles, and stories."