THE STRAWBERRY THIEF
A Book That Will Interest Young People In The Lives of Birds With an Adventurous Tale Of Resisting The Loss of Their Land and Their Way of Life
Excerpt
Bradley and Beth look up and see a great flock of finches flying above. They look distressed, and when they see Bradley and Beth below, they cry out, “There are men in our field, they have begun to dig out the spring and cut down the trees. They are taking the brush away in great wheelbarrows and clearing the ground of all growth, leaving only bare earth behind. They are destroying everything and taking out the heart of our land! We must fly away and escape, but where can we fly to?”
Using his nickname, they call out to Bradley, “Little Brother, call a meeting of all of the small birds to decide what we can and must do.”
Bradley and Beth immediately leave their meal and fly to the field to see if it as the finches describe. Perching on a high branch in a tree nearby where the men are working, the two sparrows watch them. Some men would remove the brush. Other men are bringing in great white plastic pipes and laying them in stacks next to the stream. Bradley and Beth watch as all kinds of birds take flight to escape and quail run keeping their chicks close on narrow trails.
Bradley turns to his friend and says, “This is truly the end of the world.”
Beth is silent for a moment, before responding. “We will find a way to stop them, we must.”
My inspiration for this book is the number of young people on our bird watching hikes. Their interest and knowledge of the birds, the different species and their behaviors is inspiring. I wish to motivate more young people to develop an interest in outings to field and forest. By creating this story, I hope young people will become interested in the lives of these most common of wild creatures, to learn more about the natural world as they hike in places that are at least slightly wild, and sometimes grandly and excitingly truly wild.
Available from Amazon as a paperback and as a Kindle version.
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Contact: jcchandler.author@gmail.com
I’m a writer of fiction, fiction for adults, fiction for children, because it’s fun. It’s a gas, I have such a good time and I hope my joy of writing comes through for my readers.
I am a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and have done volunteer work for Independent Authors of Southern California, I love being around writers, they notice things, they find delight in small things and large.
My education includes undergraduate at California State University-Fullerton and graduate school at California Polytechnic University-Pomona and again at Fullerton. I have studied creative writing and art at Santa Monica College.
I live with my lovely wife in a small home in Marina del Rey, California. My table for thought and creation is in a breakfast nook with windows that face the street where I watch the birds, squirrels, and people waking their dogs (dogs walking their people?) through a screen of lemon trees and a single lime tree that reside in my front yard. My enchanting and inspirational neighbors in green. I’m a Californian, born in El Centro, you can learn more about that with a short Creative Non-Fiction Story at