Now through Mother's Day, the ebook version of COYOTE WINDS is on sale for 99 cents on Amazon. Please help me spread the word
4.7 out of 5 Stars on Amazon.
Some of my favorite blurbs:
"Sedwick creates authentic moments that showcase the American West.” ForeWord 5-star review
“Sedwick's prose possesses an underlying beauty that captures the world in which her story takes place.” Publishers Weekly
"The
book tells the story of the Great Depression and Dust Bowl in a way
that encourages readers to think, and to want to know more. It helps us
to understand both the harshness and the beauty of farm life on the
southern Plains.” --Pamela Riney-Kehrberg, contributor to Ken Burns’
film, The Dust Bowl
Helen Sedwick
Musings about Coyotes, The Dust Bowl and Writing
Thursday, May 8, 2014
Sunday, January 12, 2014
If you can’t be a muskie, then just be a bass
Photo by Horia Varlan on Flickr |
IF by Douglas Malloch
If you can’t be a pine on the top of
the hill,
Be a scrub in the valley – but be
The best little scrub by the side of the rill;
Be a bush if you can’t be a tree.
Be a scrub in the valley – but be
The best little scrub by the side of the rill;
Be a bush if you can’t be a tree.
If you can’t be a bush be a bit of
the grass,
And some highway happier make;
If you can’t be a muskie, then just be a bass -
But the liveliest bass in the lake!
And some highway happier make;
If you can’t be a muskie, then just be a bass -
But the liveliest bass in the lake!
We can’t all be captains, we’ve got
to be crew,
There’s something for all of us here,
There’s big work to do, and there’s lesser to do,
And the task you must do is the near.
There’s something for all of us here,
There’s big work to do, and there’s lesser to do,
And the task you must do is the near.
If you can’t be a highway then just
be a trail,
If you can’t be the sun be a star;
It isn’t by size that you win or you fail -
Be the best of whatever you are!
If you can’t be the sun be a star;
It isn’t by size that you win or you fail -
Be the best of whatever you are!
Saturday, November 30, 2013
The Fourth Musketeer: Book Review Coyote Winds, by Helen Sedwick (Ten G...
Margo Tanenbaum, a school librarian in Los Angeles, reviews COYOTE WINDS. Thank you Margo.
Here's the entire review:
The Fourth Musketeer: Book Review Coyote Winds, by Helen Sedwick (Ten G...: Recommended for ages 10 and up. I live in a very urban area of Southern California, but one with a healthy population of coyotes. It...
"Sedwick's novel succeeds in capturing the imagination of the
reader with appealing characters, the spirit of adventure in the West, and the
adversity of life during the Dust Bowl. We see this through the eyes of
Andy, Myles' grandson, who stands in for the young reader. It's a novel I
had a hard time putting down."
Here's the entire review:
The Fourth Musketeer: Book Review Coyote Winds, by Helen Sedwick (Ten G...: Recommended for ages 10 and up. I live in a very urban area of Southern California, but one with a healthy population of coyotes. It...
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Can Prairie Dogs Speak?
Photo by David Hardy on Flickr |
Well, not exactly. But they do communicate.
According to Dr. Constantine Slobodchikoff, professor
at Northern Arizona University and well-known animal behaviorist and
conservation biologist, prairie dogs have
a large vocabulary of yips and barks. Some are greetings, and others, like
their yip-jumps, appear to be play.
Much of their vocabulary consists
of warnings, and their barks differ depending on the type and location of a threat.
A warning about an approaching coyote differs from the warning about a
rattlesnake. These Animal Planet Videos demonstrate the various calls. (Sorry about the commercials.)
1844 sketch of a prairie dog town from Wikipedia |
A keystone species plays a critical role in maintaining the structure of an ecological community because of its effect on other organisms. While the keystone is under the least pressure of any of the stones in an arch, the arch still collapses without it. Similarly, an ecosystem may experience a dramatic shift if a keystone species is removed.
Photo by US Fish & Wildlife on Flickr |
Their burrows help to channel rain
underground, reducing surface erosion and increasing the amount of water
reaching the water table.
Prairie dog tunnels also make
suitable habitats for other animals. Rabbits, salamanders, snakes, and
burrowing owls live in abandoned burrows, and badgers and coyotes have been
known to enlarge prairie dog burrows to form their own dens.
Photo by Kevin Cole on Flickr |
Finally, prairie dogs provide an
ample food source for other animals in the food chain such as eagles, hawks, foxes,
coyotes, badgers, and the endangered black-footed ferrets.
Unfortunately, many farmers consider
the prairie dog to be destructive pests which eat crops, compete with cattle,
and carry diseases. They shoot, poison, and even dynamite entire prairie dog
towns. Environmentalists have attempted
to have black-tailed prairie dogs listed as endangered.
Here is an informative passage from
Wikipedia. Prairie Dogs
"In
2000, the U.S. Department of the Interior declared the black-tailed prairie dog
“warranted” for listing as a threatened species, however the secretary was
"precluded from actually listing the species by more urgent
concerns". In 2004, the department declared that protection was “not
warranted.” The day after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service removed the
species from the candidate list, South Dakota announced its mass extermination
campaign in the Conata Basin, home to one of the two viable black-footed ferret populations remaining in
the wild. Tens of thousands of acres of prairie dogs were poisoned until 2006.
In 2007, conservation groups filed suit in U.S. District Court in Denver
challenging the secretary of the interior’s decision not to list the
black-tailed prairie dog as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act. Forest
Guardians, Rocky Mountain Animal Defense, the
Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, and the Center for Native Ecosystems
contended that the livestock industry and land developers pressured the federal
government not to list the prairie dog."
How you can help
I
want to thank Abi Cushman for collecting this information on her site, Animal Facts.
If you would like to help the
black-tailed prairie dog, there are several things you can do. You can contact
government officials at the local, state, and federal levels advocating further
protection for black-tailed prairie dogs. You can also make donations to
charities trying to save the Great Plains and its wildlife like Wildlife Defenders or the American Prairie Foundation.
More Prairie Dog Resources
- Rocky Mountain Animal Defense’s Save the Prairie Dog Website
- Prairie Dog Coalition
- Defenders of Wildlife Black-tailed Prairie Dog Page
- US Fish & Wildlife Service’s 2004 Prairie Dog Press Release
- “New Language Discovered: Prairiedogese,” NPR.org, January 20, 2011
Prairie dog in flowers David Hardy on Flickr
Kissing Prairie Dogs US Fish & Wildlife on Flickr
Burrowing Owl Protecting its Den Kevin Cole on Flickr
All photos used under Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en
Friday, October 4, 2013
Lesson Plan: The American Dream in COYOTE WINDS
My Grandparents |
Coyote Winds Lesson Plan: American Dreams
Subject: Literature/American Studies; Grade Level: 6-9
Duration: Three to four class
periods
Writing in 1931, historian James Truslow Adams described the American Dream as “that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.” He identified the American West, a place where “the frontiersman had developed the right combination of qualities to conquer the wilderness,” as the birthplace of this distinctly American can-do spirit. The American West, with its seemingly limitless land and boundless opportunities to start anew, seemed the perfect place for men and women to prove themselves, build their fortunes and live their dreams.
Guiding Questions:
- What is the American Dream? Is it different now than it was in the 1930’s? Is Coyote Winds critical of the American Dream or does it celebrate it? Might it do both?
- In Coyote Winds, how is the American Dream connected to the American West? Why do some characters see the prairie as a land of possibilities while others feel trapped in it?
·
Examine critically the concept of the American
Dream.
·
Analyze a recurring theme in a literary text.
·
Conduct in-depth character analyses.
·
Use and summarize evidence from a literary text
to support an argument.
Procedure: Class 1: Introduction to the American Dream
1. Begin
by asking the class to spend 10-15 minutes writing about what they think of
when they hear the term “American Dream.” How would they define it? Do they
know, or have they heard of people, who are living the American Dream? Is the
American Dream distinctly American? Why or why not? After 10-15 minutes, ask
students to discuss what they wrote with the class.
2. For
common ground, have students watch this video on the American Dream: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americannovel/video/ANamericandream.html.
How does the video define the American Dream? What are some the unique aspects
of American history that the speakers in the video relate to the American
Dream?
Use the rest of the class to discuss how the American Dream is revealed in Coyote Winds, and especially how Lionel’s character embodies it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)