What’s The Crane and the Keeper? A narrative of the sudden risks of imprinting. An interspecies friendship story. A narrative of persistence. A love story. A narrative of people each harming—and saving—a species. And it’s a nonfiction image e-book written by Meeg Pincus and illustrated by Gillian Eilidh O’Mara about Walnut, a uncommon white-naped crane, and Chris Crowe, the human she selected as her mate.
Walnut’s mother and father had been poached from their homelands in Asia and smuggled into the US. Volunteer rescued the birds, and in 1981, a chick hatched in a barn in Wisconsin, and was named after a pie within the native diner. However the volunteers paid an excessive amount of loving consideration to Walnut. She imprinted on people so strongly that she recognized as human. As she grew, she attacked the males that have been introduced to her. For different species, breeding won’t have mattered. However for the endangered white-naped cranes, Walnut’s genes have been important to saving her species. With wild mother and father, she was unrelated to the opposite white-naped craned in captivity.
“A bother referred to as imprinting” in THE CRANE AND THE KEEPER
After failing at a number of zoos, Walnut was despatched to the Smithsonian’s Nationwide Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute (NZCBI) in Virginia. That very same 12 months, NZCBI employed Chris Crowe because the crane keeper. Patiently, over years, Chris earned Walnut’s belief after which love as she danced and courted him. Chris danced again, provided nesting supplies—and was capable of give Walnut an injections in order that she may lay fertilized eggs.
Award-winning creator Meeg Pincus focuses each writing and supporting “Solutionary Tales”—tales that assist folks, animals and the planet. Different books embrace Winged Wonders: Fixing the Monarch Migration Thriller and Cougar Crossing: How Hollywood’s Celeb Cougar Helped Construct a Bridge for Metropolis Wildlife which acquired the Financial institution Road Faculty Prepare dinner Prize. The Crane and the Keeper has already been honored by the Junior Library Guild as a 2025 choice. Realizing her work, the Smithsonian reached out on to Meeg to inform this story.
Artist Gillian Eilidh O’Mara is famous for her luminous depictions of sunshine. In The Crane and the Keeper, she makes use of a palette of sundown hues that hyperlinks to the rosy patches round Walnut’s eyes. The illustrations are inviting, welcoming, and thought-provoking. The paintings on the unfold displaying the gaze and connection between a bison and Chris Crowe visually strengthens the theme and message of the e-book: if people arduous wildlife species, the people should save them.
A younger Chris Crowe and a bison in THE CRANE AND THE KEEPER
The backmatter in The Crane and the Keeper is very detailed and wealthy. It contains further info on cranes usually, on Walnut particularly, and on animal imprinting and the way it may be averted. There’s a Q&A with Chris Crowe (together with a query about the best way to assist birds at dwelling), a piece of the Smithsonian’s Nationwide Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute (NZCBI), further sources, a bibliography and a glossary.
Backmatter on Walnut, cranes and imprinting in THE CRANE AND THE KEEPER
For years, the story of “the crane with a crush” made newspaper headlines world wide, and this e-book shares this unbelievable story with younger readers. Youngsters shall be particularly intrigued by the method and issues of imprinting and the challenges created when a species believes it’s one thing that it isn’t.
The Crane and the Keeper is a e-book that belongs in dwelling, college and public libraries. It’s a fantastic present for all younger wildlife lovers and conservationists, and for chook lovers of any age.
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The Crane and the Keeper by Meeg Pincus, illustrated by Gillian Eilidh O’Mara
Smithsonian Children and Candlewick Leisure, 2025
ISBN: 978-1536232363
$18.99 USA, $24.99 CAN
40 pages, Grade degree PreK-3, ages 4-8
