What can turtles teach us about time, patience, and wisdom? What can we learn about the mysteries of consciousness by observing animals? How can we open our senses and embrace the interconnectedness of all life on Earth?

Author Sy Montgomery and illustrator Matt Patterson are naturalists, adventurers, and creative collaborators. Montgomery has published over thirty acclaimed nonfiction books for adults and children and received numerous honors, including lifetime achievement awards from the Humane Society and the New England Booksellers Association.

Patterson’s illustrations have been featured in several books and magazines, such as Yankee Magazine and Fine Art Connoisseur. He is the recipient of Roger Tory Peterson Wild American Art Award, National Outdoor Book Award for Nature and the Environment, and other honors. Most recently, Patterson provided illustrations for Freshwater Fish of the Northeast.

Their joint books are Of Time and Turtles: Mending the World, Shell by Shattered Shell and The Book of the Turtle. Montgomery’s other books include The Soul of an Octopus, The Hawk’s Way and The Secrets of the Octopus (published in conjunction with a National Geographic TV series).

"A friend had asthma as a child, and she couldn't have a pet, but she loved animals. So she watched the ants crawl on the asphalt roof of her apartment when she was a kid. And she is a biologist now who studies tree kangaroos in Papua New Guinea, but it all started with watching ants. So there is wildness and wonder all around us and we can all help preserve that wildness and wonder. 

It makes a human feel less lonely. So many humans I know, they're just suffering terribly from loneliness even though they're in a sea of other humans. Well, I never feel lonely. And I can be alone, so-called, in a landscape with no other human anywhere, and I feel nested and safe and at home. And I know you do, too, because there are all these other lives around us. And when you think of, as Mary Oliver said, 'our wild and precious life,' I mean, I certainly cherish my one precious single life. But the life with a capital L all around me is so much more precious and so much more glorious, and being part of that just opens up my soul and frees me from everything."

www.mpattersonart.com
https://symontgomery.com
www.harpercollins.com/products/of-time-and-turtles-sy-montgomery?variant=41003864817698
www.harpercollins.com/products/the-book-of-turtles-sy-montgomery?variant=40695888609314
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/F/bo215806915.html

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