Chasing Cheetahs has been selected as one of the Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K-12 for 2015. This list is a cooperative project of the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and the Children’s Book Council.

Five wonderful elementary schools in Carmel Indiana rolled out the red carpet for Sy last week, where she shared stories and images of her work, signed and personalized hundreds of books, and answered the kids’ thoughtful and perceptive questions. Thanks to the fantastic school librarians, the kids were extremely well-prepared; they had been reading Sy’s work, watching videos, learning about animals and creating artwork for weeks in advance of her arrival.

Thank you to Cherry Tree, College Wood, Mohawk Trails, Smoky Row and West Clay Elementary Schools!

Here’s some photos and artwork from that unforgettable visit:

Sy’s new friend, Lauren, started a wildlife journal like Sy’s after having lunch with her!

Sy’s forthcoming book for young people, The Octopus Scientists, photographed by Keith Ellenbogen, has been chosen as a Junior Library Guild Selection. JLG is a collection development and review service that schools and libraries have relied upon for 85 years, suggesting upcoming books with particular promise. The Octopus Scientists is the true story of an expedition to study wild Pacific Day Octopuses in french Polynesia with a team of octopus experts–including an octopus psychologist! The book will be published in May by Houghton Mifflin.

The end of September finds Sy in a cage underwater with Great White Sharks. This summer she’s worked off Cape Cod from a boat with shark researcher Greg Skomal and his team. But to get really up close and personal, she’s getting in the water with these beautiful animals, traveling with photographer Keith Ellenbogen to the chrystal-clear waters off Guadeloupe, Mexico. She hopes to get views like these!

The Regret of Rats, the Grief of Wolves: Animals Do Have Emotions, But What Should We Call Them? Sy talks with her friend and fellow “animalist” Vicki Croke for The Wild Life which runs on WBUR’s Here and Now. Read the interview here. Or listen here.

Sy’s short essay, “Tarantula Heaven,” is part of the fifth installment in the Guys Read Library of Great Reading. The True Stories anthology features “ten stories that are 100% amazing, 100% adventurous, 100% unbelievable—and 100% true. A star-studded group of award-winning nonfiction authors and journalists provides something for every reader, all aligned with the Common Core State Standards.”

With her friends, Massachusetts shark biologist Greg Skomal and photographer Keith Ellenbogen, Sy will be on the Cape in early July chasing great white sharks for her next book, The Great White Shark Scientist. Sy’s planning to stay on the boat this time, but come September, she’ll be diving with them — in a cage — off Guadeloupe. (Photo from clker.com, public domain clip art.)

Congratulations to Pati Medici. For her long-running tapir conservation project, Pati has been chosen as one of 20 new TED Fellows for 2014. The Tapir Scientist is all about Pati’s work in Brazil protect the threatened lowland tapir – the largest terrestrial mammal in South America.

The Tapir Scientist has been selected by Bank Street College of Education as one of The Best Children’s Books of the Year, 2014.

Kakapo Rescue: Saving the World’s Strangest Parrot, has been nominated for a 2015 Grand Canyon Reader Award.

The Grand Canyon Reader Award is chosen by children. Approximately 45,000 Arizona students vote each year. Kakpo Rescue, along with nine other nonfiction books, will be read by teachers, librarians, and students all over Arizona and voted upon by April 1, 2015.

As “The Animalist”, former Boston Globe reporter Vicki Croke brings us news about the natural world. Vicki and Sy are kindred spirits, so it was a great pleasure to have Vicki visit.

Vicki asked Sy: Do you feel as though you’ve learned, not just about an animal’s natural history, but lessons about life for yourself?

Sy answered: How to be a good creature. How do you be compassionate?… I think that animals teach compassion better than anything else and compassion doesn’t necessarily just mean a little mouse with a sore foot and you try to fix it. It means getting yourself inside the mind and heart of someone else. Seeing someone’s soul, looking for their truth. Animals teach you all of that and that’s how you get compassion and heart.” Watch a video of the interview here.

Chasing Cheetahs: The Race to Save Africa’s Fastest Cats has been chosen as A Junior Library Guild Selection for Spring 2014. The Junior Library Guild’s honor is unique because it is awarded in advance of the publication date. Chasing Cheetahs will be published this April.

Booklist has chosen The Tapir Scientist as one of its Top Ten Books on Sustainability for Youth: 2014.

How Thinking in Pictures Brought Temple Grandin Success. The fourth, fifth and sixth graders who are part of Wolcott Elementary School’s Dorothy Canfield Fisher Book Club have been reading Temple Grandin: How the Girl Who Loved Cows Embraced Autism and Changed the World. Many of the students wanted to know more about Temple Grandin’s work with animals. Others were interested in how Sy researched and wrote her books.

Sy answered their questions on Vermont Public Radio. You can listen or read a transcript of the short interview here.

Cheetahs are coming. Sy’s newest book in the acclaimed Scientists in the Field series will be published this April. Chasing Cheetahs: The Race to Save Africa’s Fastest Cat features Nic Bishop’s award-winning photography. Read about the making of Chasing Cheetahs here.

Temple Grandin has won a 2014 Norman A. Sugarman Children’s Biography Award Honor. The Sugarman Award is given biennially by the Cleveland Public Library to honor excellence in the field of biography for children. Endowed by the Joan G. Sugarman family, the Norman A. Sugarman Children’s Biography Award was established in 1998.

Q. What came first, the fascination with and love of nature or the desire to write? When did the two intersect?

A. I loved animals and plants long before I could read or write. I am told that before I was two, I toddled inside the hippo pen at the Frankfurt zoo—and the massive hippos were apparently quite welcoming and did not (obviously) bite me in half, as they are prone to do to humans in similar circumstances in the wild.

From an interview with Sy in The Penmen Review, Southern New Hampshire University Online Journal for Creative Writers. Read more of the interview here.

Go pig, go! There are now 100,000 copies of The Good Good Pig in paperback, and more than 40,000 copies in hardcover in the U.S. and Canada. And Christopher Hogwood has ventured overseas in Dutch, British, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, and Portuguese editions.

The Tapir Scientist has been chosen as an Outstanding Science Trade Book for Students K-12 for 2014. This list is a cooperative project of the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and the Children’s Book Council.

The Journal of Children’s Literature Fall 2013 issue has a long interview with Sy Montgomery and the photographer Nic Bishop. Working together in the field they have created seven acclaimed children’s books. They have followed scientists in the field as they study snakes (18,000 in one big pit!), tarantulas, tree kangaroos (who knew that kangaroos climbed trees?), snow leopards, kakapos (“the world’s strangest parrot”), tapirs and cheetahs (forthcoming).

What’s next? Octopuses. But Sy does listen to her readers: “I have piles of great letters from kids. One child urged me to write about eels to show they don’t just want to electrocute people. I thought that was great.”

Thinking Deep. Sy will be the first of a dozen speakers at the day-long TEDx AmoskeagMillyard 2013. The day’s theme is “Mindset.” Sy’s talk is titled: “Thinking Deep: Octopus Mind, Eel Dreams and the Consciousness of the Other 99%.” Watch the TEDx talks streamed live, starting at 9 am here.

National Book Month 2013. The New York Public Library has created this guide to the Best Children’s Books of 2013. And who’s that we see waiting for readers, age 12 to 14, but our favorite tapir. This is a clever, inviting map that directs young readers to the next book.

A short interview with Sy about her work with the octopus scientists on Moorea (near Tahiti). “You put on your wetsuit, go down with an underwater dive slate, and set about administering a personality test to octopus,” she said. “So you float there and take notes like a psychologist on whether this particular octopus to advances or retreats, changes color or reaches out, and so on.” That’s Sy at work underwater. Click here to read more.