Back Cover Copy

I just got the back cover copy from my editor... exciting!

Holy Crocodile! back cover

Imagine riding across a dangerous river on the back of a friendly crocodile! 

Or making friends with a whole pile of snakes. Or going into hiding with the help of some spiders! 

These are not your everyday saint stories! God used both wild and tame animals to help saints when they needed it most. Here are just a few you’ll find in Holy Crocodile!

• St. Pachome and the friendly crocodile

• St. Colman and the alarming mouse

• St. Brigid and the amazing fox
• St. Cuthbert and the lifesaving sea otters
• And many more!

Told in beautiful illustrations and charming narratives by mixed-media artist Caroline Cory, these stories will delight and inspire young and old alike.

The above text should run somewhere over the body of the croc... this image runs around the book cover.

A Whale of a Story

One of the stories in Holy Crocodile concerns St. Brendan and a whale. The whale in that story is very cooperative with Brendan, even after the saint and his sailors confuse her with an island.

I saw this picture in the paper last week illustrating an article about a whale who exhibited gratitude when humans freed it from fishing nets. The whale story isn't a whopper, as Snopes will testify:
http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/whalethanks.asp though the image doesn't date to the event in question. In this article it said that, after the whale was free, it began swam up to each diver/rescuer and nuzzling him. The divers said that, while they hated to anthropomorphize too much, it felt like the whale was thanking them.

In the course of looking for this amazing pictures I came across lots of other stories about people freeing whales, including videos of whales jumping for joy after people cut them free from nets. Sadly, it's estimated that fishing nets kill nearly 1,000 whales, dolphins and porpoises a day!

Check out this article from National Geographic for more information about at-risk sea mammals and things that be done to help. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/06/0610_050610_dolphins.html