Sing a Song of Salamanders...

Last week it was the Wibbly. This week it’s wiggly, squiggly salamanders. I knew I would love this book the moment I saw the cover, and I was right!

Salamander Song 

by Ginny Neil; illus. by Charli Vince 

40 pages; ages 4-8

Tilbury House Publishers, 2025

theme: citizen science, salamanders, nature

Autumn sings here, “Ready! Set! Swish!”

We meet the salamander at the end of salamander season – in the fall when it’s ready to burrow in for the winter. But soon, sleet raps and taps. The pond fills. Water slips and drips “into the deep and tickles the salamander out of its sleep.” Fortunately, there are people who are ready and willing to help the salamander and its friends cross the road to the safety of the vernal pool. 

What I like love about this book: The language is lyrical and luscious. There is rhyme without being a rhyming book, and there is a rhythm to this story that culminates in the chant on the last few pages… a chant that almost sounds like a salamander fight song. The illustrations invite children to spend time on the page noticing details. As a whole, this book encourages kids (and adults, too, I hope) to head outside on a wet night to check out the seasonal amphibians. And maybe get involved in Big Night, when folks help frogs and salamanders by slowing traffic for amphibian crossings. Back matter includes an author’s note and four community science projects that kids can get involved in.

I had to ask Ginny One Question.

Me: Your book has the feel of someone who's gone out and helped salamanders cross the roads. Have you?

Ginny: Although I have never participated in a Big Night salamander event, I am a Master Naturalist and as part of my training I visited vernal pools. Our leader, a salamander expert, netted various salamanders including a rare Jefferson salamander, and we saw balls of breeding toads (called toad balls) in which many males climb atop one female and the resulting mass forms a ball that rolls and roils in the pond. We also pulled up spotted salamander egg masses cemented to underwater vegetation, and our guide talked to us about the shrinking number of vernal pools available for these mass breeding events. 

Months later, I read an article about a citizen science project called Big Night, which takes place on the first night of a warm spring rain. This is when ordinary people gather and provide help for all the amphibians trying to reach vernal pools across the road from their wintering grounds. It was an intriguing idea and since I have done many citizen science projects with students I wanted to write about the idea of ordinary citizens working together to add data to the scientific community. Since all amphibians are counted as they cross, this was an interesting way to approach it. The book follows the salamanders and humans through the season until they meet on a night of salamander rain.

I love salamanders. My boys kept some red newts ( no longer legally permissible because of disease) in a terrarium  when they were growing up and we find them all the time around our mountain farm. All salamanders are considered an indicator species so when they begin to disappear we should be concerned.

Thank you for your salamander savvy. Ginny is a member of #STEAMTeam2025.  A couple of years ago we chatted about her book,  The Glorious Forest that Fire Built. You can find out more about her at her website, www.ginnyneilwrites.com

Beyond the Books:

Go on a salamander search. Choose a warm rainy night to go outside where you can listen for frogs croaking, toads trilling, and maybe see some slithery salamanders migrating toward their pond. If you don’t have salamanders living near you, check out these salamanders from North Carolina. So many kinds!

Why did the Salamander cross the road? You can find out in this article about the annual spring salamander migration in my neck of the woods.

Create a sensational salamander. You could use legos, carboard and paint, or crayons and paper to create a salamander that you’d love to see. You can even use the letter S as a salamander template, like this one from the San Diego Children’s Discovery Museum.

Today we’re joining Perfect Picture Book Friday. It’s a wonderful gathering where bloggers share great picture books at Susanna Leonard Hill's website. Review copy provided by the publisher.

Salamander Season

Salamander Season
by Jennifer Keats Curtis & J. Adam Frederick; illus. by Shennen Bersani
32 pages; ages 4-8
Arbordale, 2015

theme: animals, nature

"Errr, screech the brakes. There! In front of the car, little blue animals wriggle across the road..."

This is a story about salamanders from the perspective of a girl who goes into the woods with her dad. They find a vernal pool and check out the salamanders marching from the woods to the water. Later, she finds eggs ("small mushy cases... as big as softballs and as firm as Jell-o"). When the salamanders hatch, her dad takes two back to his lab to study. He's an environmental scientist, so he knows how to keep baby salamanders safe.

What I like about this book: It gives a real up-close-and-personal view of salamander life. We see hungry predators and the young salamanders taking action to avoid becoming salamander snacks. The book is laid out like a journal, with entries describing what happens throughout the salamander season. It's illustrated with a combination of child-like drawings and photos ... very much like what you'd find in your kid's nature journal.

Beyond the Book: Go find your mud boots and a flashlight. It's time to head outside for a nighttime salamander hike. It helps if you know where people have found salamanders in your area, so ask a local nature center where to go. Remember to be a good guest when you visit your salamander friends. Take nothing but pictures; leave nothing but muddy footprints.

Help build a salamander/ amphibian crossing. There are some places where salamanders (and frogs and turtles) cross roads year after year. If you know of such a place, find out if they need crossing guards during rainy nights. Or whether they need help building a safe place for amphibians to cross.

Make a Salamander Armband. Use a cardboard tube to make a salamander you can wear on your sleeve. Directions at National Wildlife Federation. 

Keep a Salamander journal. Draw the kinds of salamanders you see. Over the summer, keep track of them. Draw their eggs, and the baby salamanders. Check a field guide to see what sorts of salamanders live in your region.

Today's review is part of the STEM Friday roundup. Drop by STEM Friday blog for more science books and resources. We're also joining PPBF (perfect picture book Friday), an event in which bloggers share great picture books at Susanna Leonard Hill's site. She keeps an ever-growing list of Perfect Picture Books.  Review copy from the publisher.

A Vernal Pool is Not Just a Puddle!

The Secret Pool

by Kimberly Ridley; illus by Rebekah Raye

32 pages; ages 7-10

Tillbury House, 2013

"A shimmer. A twinkling. Do you have any inkling of what I am?"

Themes: animal, nature, nonfiction

You might walk right by a vernal pool and not notice it. Or you might think it's just a puddle in the woods. But vernal pools are more than puddles...

Opening: "I'm a watery jewel called a vernal pool. I sparkle, but that's not the only reason I'm precious. Many creatures of the forest depend on me."

In this book you meet the frogs and salamanders and birds and fairy shrimp that depend on a temporary pool. You see the life above and the life below the waterline. Along the way you learn what "vernal pools" are, the life cycle of frogs and salamanders, and how to go "pool hopping".

What I like about this book: I love the artwork! Rebekah Raye's illustrations make you just want to plunge right into a pool yourself. I like the way author Kimberly Ridley tells the story from the point of view of the pool itself. The text is easy to read, with rhyming words tucked in here and there, and alliterations sprinkled throughout. About fairy shrimp, for example: "Slim and frilly, they swim willy-nilly.... tickling me with their feathery feet."

There's a sidebar on each spread, so readers can learn how to tell the difference between frog and salamander eggs, what tadpoles look like, and the predators who use the vernal pool as a snack bar. And there's a helpful glossary at the back.

Beyond the Book: Spring peepers are usually the first frogs we hear around our area. It's a bit chilly for frogs at the top of the hill where I live, but my friends in the flatlands say they can already hear frogsongs at night. You can listen to the sounds of frogs from the Sandhills of Nebraska here.

Sing a Frog Song. One of my favorite counting songs is "Five Little Speckled Frogs". Sing along, or make up your own song about life in the vernal pool.

Go on a Listening Walk. Walk into the woods or find a place to listen outside for about 10 minutes. Write down all the spring sounds you hear. Which ones are made by animals? Can you tell what animals are making those noises? Are there any noises that aren't made by animals?

Play Vernal Pool Bingo. I borrowed this idea from UC Davis. Create bingo sheets that feature different plants and animals that live in vernal pools. This would be fun to play in the car while driving to a natural area - or while sitting near a pool.

Make a Vernal Pool in a Bin. Line the bottom of your bin with leaves - or paper leaves that you cut out of colored paper. Then pour in some hydrated water beads (a mix of blues and greens with clear beads would be neat). When you're out and about, look for some rubber or plastic frogs and salamanders that you can put in your pool. Or draw the animals you see in the book, and cut them out to put in and around your pool.

Drop by STEM Friday to see what other science books and resources bloggers are sharing.   Today's review is part of PPBF (perfect picture book Friday), an event in which bloggers share great picture books at Susanna Leonard Hill's site. She keeps an ever-growing list of Perfect Picture Books.

  On Monday we'll pool-hop over to join the Nonfiction Monday round-up, where you'll find all kinds of great nonfiction for children and teens.  Review f & g provided by publisher.

Salamanders in The Garden

We often find newts in our garden. Red-spotted newts hiding in the mulch or laboriously crawling towards the shade cast by towering cosmos. But last week, while harvesting potatoes, we unearthed two salamanders. They were long – mostly tail – with stubby legs and glistened deep red, almost black.

At first glance salamanders look a lot like lizards, but they are amphibians. Like frogs. Salamanders have moist, often slimy skin with no scales. They use that moist skin to breathe. And while lizards have scratchy toenails (claws), salamanders do not.

Salamanders need moisture, and after all the rain we got last month – a record 12 inches on our hill – the garden beds were just the right soggy-ness for them. The crawled under the mulch and dug into the wet soil of the potato hills – the perfect salamander home until hungry gardeners came along…

This fall as you pull out the weeds and get your garden ready for winter, pay attention to the small critters living there. And, if you can, leave a few big rocks and some cover for shelter.

Nonfiction Monday: Big Night for Salamanders

Big Night for Salamanders

by Sarah Marwil Lamstein, illustrated by Carol Benioff

40 pages, for ages 7 – 9

Boyds Mills Press 2010

Every spring Spotted Salamanders migrate from their winter homes in the forested hills to their breeding ponds, where they mate and lay their eggs. It’s a long and dangerous journey, especially when the tiny amphibians – obscured in the rainy dark of night – must cross roads. Fortunately, children (and adults) show up on migration night, slowing down traffic and carrying salamanders across the roads.

Sarah Lamstein captures the excitement of this annual migration well in Big Night for Salamanders. Evan, racing home from the school bus, asks his parents: Is this the Big Night? He covers his flashlight with pink plastic so as not to hurt the salamanders’ eyes, and heads out to warn motorists to slow down.

A few weeks ago I asked Lamstein what inspired her to write the book – aside from her own experiences helping tiny amphibians across the road. “It’s the magic of the event,” she said – not just the yearly phenomenon of salamanders migrating to the pond en masse, but the magic of vernal pools. They’re present in the spring, but by the end of summer the seasonal pools are gone. Dried up. Disappeared.

“Then there is the magic of the Spotted Salamanders,” Lamstein said. “Their loveliness and their vulnerability.” The final bit of magic, she says, is in the children who help the salamanders cross a road on Big Night. 

Big Night alternates between two points of view. Part of the story is told through Evan’s voice, the child who can’t wait to put on his boots and head out to help his salamandery friends. The other half narrates an up-close-and-personal amphibious viewpoint about emerging from winter sleep and feeling the pull to head pondward.

“The most remarkable thing I learned,” says Lamstein, “is that they find their way to the vernal pool through remembered scents.” When the baby salamanders complete development and leave their pool for the upland forest, they remember the scents of the soil, plants and rocks along the way. This sensory map guides them back to the pool each year.  “It’s remarkable!” says Lamstein.

Lamstein’s deep appreciation for the spotted salamanders and her own involvement with Big Night give her story authenticity. No wonder Smithsonian listed Big Night for Salamanders in their 2010 Notable Books for Children.

This post is part of the Nonfiction Monday Round-Up hosted this week by Chapter Book of the Day; book provided from the local library.