Eric Rohmann and I have just com­plet­ed a non­fic­tion pic­ture book for Neal Porter Books/Roaring Brook (Sum­mer, 2016) titled Giant Squid. I con­fess I came on board late in this project. Eric had already sketched out the illus­tra­tions. In fact, he had an entire word­less dum­my when he invit­ed me to write some accom­pa­ny­ing text. This def­i­nite­ly felt like a case of putting the cart before the horse. But I loved the chal­lenge. What did I come up with? Here’s a sam­pling from the book’s begin­ning. What do you think?

Down, down in the depths of the sun­less sea,

                        deep, deep in the cold, cold dark,

                                    creatures,

                                                strange and fearsome,

                                                            lurk.

            With writhing arms and ghost­ly, lid­less eyes

                             they glide;

                                    some large as buses,

                                                some weigh­ing a ton.

            So big, yet rarely seen.

            Instead, they are mere­ly glimpsed,

                        now and then,

                                    from the prow of a ship …

                                                from a rocky seashore …

                                                    through the lens of an under­wa­ter camera.

            Who are these giants of the dark seas?

            How do they hunt?

            How do they eat?

            How do they breed?

            It is a mystery.

            After all, how can you know about an ani­mal hid­den from view?

            You must rely on clues,

                        as sci­en­tists do,

                                    clues left behind by the crea­tures themselves.

A ten­ta­cle.

An eye.

            Pieces found around the world,

                        found over centuries,

                                    by whalers,

                                                and sailors,

                                                            and peo­ple walk­ing the beach.

            You exam­ine each piece,

                        ques­tion­ing and guessing,

                                    won­der­ing at the weird­ness of these baf­fling beasts.

            Beasts we call giant squid.

Pho­to Descrip­tion: A plas­ti­fied Giant Squid (Archi­teuthis sanc­ti­pauli). Nat­ur­al His­to­ry Muse­um, Paris. It is the first plas­ti­fied giant squid exposed in a muse­um. 9 meters long.

Pho­to Cred­it: By Stephane­martin (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wiki­me­dia Commons