Matagorda Magic: The Hidden Life of A Texas Bay

Hello, and welcome to the bookmark.

I'm Christine Brown, your host today.

My guest is Kimberly Ridley, author of Matagorda Magic The Hidden Life of the Texas Bay.

Kim, thank you so much for being here.

Thanks for having me.

Delighted to be here.

Well, I want to start just by asking you to introduce the book to assure that.

Yes.

So Matagorda magic, The hidden life of a Texas Bay is about the intricate ecology and rich natural life of the entire Gulf Coast.

Told through the story of a family of amazing birds called American Oystercatchers.

So it's a very dramatic tale about these birds, all based on science and real life.

And as they go through their story, you learn more about what's here, the hidden life.

We see vast swaths of Sparta, Hindmarsh and the ocean.

But there's so much more going on and it's all connected.

That's wonderful.

This is a very special book for us because I have had children's books on the bookmark before because some of the presses we distribute for have done children's literature.

But Texas A&M historically has not done children's books.

And so if you'll forgive my pun, we're kind of dipping our toes into the water with this one.

But what I love about it is that it's still very much in line with the kinds of books that we publish for for adults, the nonfiction.

We have a lot of wonderful books about the coast and about nature and ecology and conservation.

And this is all that same wonderful sound scientific information.

But for a younger audience.

Yes, yes, yes.

So we're very glad to have this, hopefully finding a new a new crowd of young conservationists.

Thank you.

It was absolutely a delight to write and create a complete joy and a lot of fun to research as well.

Well, I also want to say this isn't your first children's book, so can you kind of tell us how and why you got started, children?

Yes.

Yes.

It's quite a story.

So this is my sixth book, all nonfiction, Nature, and my fifth book for children and natural history is my passion.

I'm a science journalist by training.

I've written for grownups for many years, but right around the time I turned 50, I decided kind of on a whim to try out, try writing for young people.

And all of my books arise from a place of love and concern.

So I grew up in Maine.

I had a free range childhood roaming the same landscape.

My father and great grandparents and great grandma grandparents roamed.

And as a kid I fell in love with is was kind of like a puddle in the woods.

It was there in spring and it was full of frog and salamander eggs.

And it dried up in summer.

And I learned later as an adult when working with some scientists at the University of Maine that it's a very special wetland called a vernal pool.

And basically vernal pools turn rainwater and dead leaves into new life in the forest through the food web.

So insects, amphibians, mammals and on up, and they really help feed the entire forest.

So I pitched a press in Maine just kind of on a whim, and they took it and the other and the concern part of that comes from is I think we have I think you have vernal pools in Texas, maybe up around the hill country as well.

These ephemeral wetlands were coming under increasing threats.

Some of them are designated as significant habitat.

We have protections, but those were about to be rolled back.

So I wanted young people to know about them.

And really, the bottom line for all of my books is inspiring and sparking a sense of wonder about the world around us, things we never see in our everyday life.

And all of my books are for kids and they're grownups.

So I got really hooked.

The Secret Pool did very well, and then over the years I did a wetland trilogy.

The next was The Secret Bay and the Secret Stream.

And then one October day, it was in 2019, I was at my desk in Maine and I got a call from a lovely sounding woman from Texas, Lori Beck.

And she had seen my book The Secret Bay, which is about a northern estuary.

And she said, Would you write a book about our base down here in the south, in Texas?

And I thought, well, she sounds nice.

And, you know, you hear these things and I don't know what this is really about.

So we met and had lunch and we hit it off right away.

One thing led to another and through the Matagorda Bay Foundation and other organizations and funders, Lori flew me down to Texas, actually, both Tom and I.

That was March 20, 20.

We got and we got here, I think, the 10th and then the pandemic was announced on the 11th.

So we were supposed to stay for a couple of weeks.

We ended up staying for ten days and did a whirlwind tour of we were in Palacios and Matagorda Bay.

And I, I love the Gulf of Mexico, I love estuaries.

And I was immediately captivated by this incredible place.

And then I had the challenge of how to tell the story of this big, intricate place, this complex place full of fish.

I've never seen so many people fishing, as in Texas, and I love how people love their fish and birds.

I'm a birder.

How do I tell the story of this complex place and a real inspiration for me in my writing and in my life as Rachel Carson.

So I grew up close to the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge in Kennebunk in southern Maine.

I roamed those marshes when I was a girl, and it became a wildlife refuge, I think, when I was eight.

So one of my favorite books by Rachel Carson is called Under the Sea Wind, and she tells was published in 1945.

And it's still fresh and beautiful.

She tells the story of the entire ocean through the lives of animals who inhabit it.

So there is a mackerel, a black skimmer, an eel, an osprey, and that really gave me the idea of how do I tell the story?

Matagorda Bay as a microcosm of Texas and Gulf Coast estuary.

So I thought, look looked around.

And we also met with Bill Balboa of the Matagorda Bay Foundation.

He he taught us all around, and he's a once so knowledgeable and a wonderful biologist and I laid when I laid eyes on American oystercatchers, these lovely birds with this long, bright red beaks.

I fell in love with them.

And then I thought about other ways of telling the story.

But these birds only nest and live on the shore.

On the shore.

Right here and along the Gulf Coast and up the Atlantic coast.

They depend on this habitat.

They eat oysters, among other foods.

So they're also a beautiful way to illustrate the food web, the connectivity.

So they eat oysters.

Oysters eat plankton, and plankton grows and flourishes in estuaries.

So I really wanted to get that interdependence through the lives of an animal who lives here.

And then, of course, I had to find experts because I'm a science writer.

And I found Dr. Susan Heath of the Gulf Coast Bird Observatory.

I reached out to her and she was writing at that time on their blog, The Oyster Catcher Diaries.

So she's studying the birds and banding them and the chicks.

And so it was really a collaboration with Dr. Heath.

So science and writing, and it's been a tremendous adventure.

I can only imagine how difficult it must be just in general science journalism, taking if you've if anybody's ever tried to read a journal article, they're written in a language that is not necessarily approachable and taking that knowledge and then not even just for children, just for anyone, but especially for children, that must be a nut to crack.

It is to figure out how to say this in a way that is approachable and understandable.

Yes, Yes, it's very challenging.

I mean, the first part and as I tell children, I've been working in schools all up the Texas Gulf Coast.

I do an enormous amount of research.

I love to tell kids I read, you know, a big pile of books to write this little book and interviewed many scientists.

It's it's difficult, but I love doing it and I love learning.

So I have that joy of learning.

And then in terms of the translating part and making a story, it's really the essence of a story.

And I teach nature writing workshops with kids.

I've been with second graders all week.

We've had a blast.

And so it's the main character.

And then you start out with your main character and they have problems or jobs or challenges.

So I used that pattern to my my oyster catch her family goes through a lot of challenges and then some sort of solution or ending or the main character learns and grows.

So I had my story shape and I also one thing I'm I don't do in my books is anthropomorphize.

I a word that an editor gave me many years ago was being hood.

So I really want to share the being hood of these extraordinary animals.

So I learn a lot about their life history.

And then it's very naturally a dramatic story.

These birds lay eggs on the beach, on shell, on, you know, on oyster shells.

Their nest can get overwashed by storm tides.

The chicks get swept off the nests, the birds can get tangled in fishing line, which they often do.

The dogs will chase them.

And that's that's all in there.

So I feel like the story, this particular story, it in some way it didn't tell itself exactly, but working closely with Dr. Heath and all of the things the birds went through, it was a lot of fun.

It was really a lot of fun.

And then there was a lot of back and forth with the scientists.

So this went through three peer reviews and and Sue Heath read it for accuracy.

So there was a lot of there was a lot of science that was put back in that.

Then I had to take back out.

And the other thing about kids, I've been working with children in schools.

I've worked in many hundreds of classrooms that children are.

They're sponges.

And they in my experience and there's absolutely no need to dumb it, to dumb it down for them.

It has there has to be understandable concepts.

But for instance, I talk about phytoplankton, and here the tiny floating plant, microscopic floating plants in the ocean, and they're into boring how to pronounce the word and we learn about how phytoplankton make half of the oxygen in the air we breathe, and we do a little phytoplankton.

We pretend we're phytoplankton floating in the ocean.

So it's it's just really a joy.

It's storytelling.

And what I always come back to these books is, and when I write about science in general are two things.

Number one, I want all of my writing about science for any age to be an invitation again, fueled by empowered and informed by wonder.

And Rachel Carson inspired me in this way as she I don't know if I have the code exactly, but she her wish for every child born was to have a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life as an unfit, failing antidote against the disenchantment and boredom of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial and the alienation from the sources of our strength.

So every time I write that's her, I think that's pretty close to the quote.

So I feel that the experience of wonder is a human birthright.

And it we get it gets we lose.

We lose it so easily.

So that kind of buoys me and powers me and fuels me when I am tangling with some difficult aspect of writing the book.

And I really think that wonder is a sort of a survival skill as well.

You know, have it helping us win.

Remember, you know, we live in this beauty on this beautiful planet, the only the only real estate four light years around.

So I so that passion really helps is kind of a source of energy for me and story, the power of story.

And I've consulted with scientists and helped them to tell human stories about their work.

And years ago, Terry Tempest Williams, the author, said something that has really stuck with me, and that is that stories bypass rhetoric by piercing the heart.

So if we can just transform all of this knowledge into story, an invitation to me, that's a very powerful and wonderful thing that's changed my life also.

Absolutely.

I would imagine, or maybe I would hope that by instilling that wonder in children, maybe it rubs off on the parents a little bit too.

And as adults are hopefully reading this book to their children, they're remembering, I used to love yes, X, y, Z when I was a kid or yes, this was my favorite animal.

Bird, whatever.

Yes, I would hope that that would happen.

Yes, as well.

Yes.

Well, the kids all have a little bit of homework at the end of my assemblies and writing workshops.

And we talk about estuaries where rivers meet the ocean and fresh river water mixes with salty ocean water.

And it's a mix, a magical soup where plankton bloom and feed life in the sea and feed us and produce oxygen.

So and they all know how to pronounce it.

So and they love saying it.

And we have an estuary cheer that we do and we write about the birds, but their homework is we talk about, you know, do people need estuaries?

And we all at the end we agree because we need, you know, clean water, fresh air.

We love nature.

We love seafood, we love to fish.

So and then we talk about how estuaries need us.

So when they go home, I ask them to share one new thing that they learned today with somebody at home, because if they tell someone and they tell someone will learn and will understand that these places we drive past these vast, sparse, tiny marshes, the rivers, they are full of life and we really depend on them.

And I think it's also the hidden aspect of it is a key thing for me, because even if you go to the beach, a lot of us only think of beaches and recreational.

Yes, the coast as a recreational, which it certainly is.

And it's a wonderful place to go for that.

But this reminder that it serves a purpose.

Yes, it is a home.

Yes, it is a lot of other things.

And if we want to enjoy fishing.

Yes, birdwatching, then we need to keep our estuaries healthy.

Yes, absolutely.

That this is a wonderful reminder.

For that.

I also make you want to make sure we take a moment to talk about the beautiful illustration.

Yes, Rebecca, right?

Yes.

Yes.

So this is our third book together.

And we did The Secret Pool and the Secret Bay Together.

And then after Laura invited me to write this book, and again, Matagorda Bay Foundation and the Marsh Project, which she started, that's the Matagorda area response for sustainable habitat.

They provided funding for the illustrations.

They raised the funds for the illustrations as well with Rebecca.

Rebecca is an amazing human being and artist, so she is a fine artist as well.

I mean, these are really fine art illustrations and as she will say, we relate so as she does as much research for her illustrations as I do for the story and how we talk about our collaboration, the man who's in children's book publishing.

If there's a separate author and illustrator, the manuscript comes first and then the illustrations.

And I talk with the kids about how my work is to paint pictures with words, to put this invite readers into these amazing lives of these animals and places.

And she tells more of the story with pictures.

So her first step, she does what's called a dummy.

She does graphite illustrations, a mockup of the book, and then used gouache and other different mediums to create these amazing illustrations.

A funny story.

She loves animals as much, if not more, than I do.

So that in the back of the book there's kind of like a mini field guide to Olive, to all of the birds and other creatures in the book.

And when I the manuscript had about 30 organisms, and by the time Rebecca was done with illustrations, there were 75.

So we talked about that and I was doing all of the write ups and all the animals.

And I said, Rebecca, I don't know if we really need five different kinds of worms.

So we got it down to 60, but her hair and her detail and she again really expresses the being hood of every organism.

I mean, her skill at fish and her little girl bees, they they have they have this complete their own personality.

And she talks about every creature, even insects has a sparkle in their eyes.

So she always puts a sparkle in the eyes.

So it was it was really a joy to work with Rebecca on the book.

I have to compliment how the partnership comes through, because you talk about not anthropomorphic.

I can't say that word Humanizing.

Yes, animals.

But she also doesn't cartoon them.

That's right.

That's very, very.

And it stays it stays scientifically accurate, both text and in picture.

Yes.

And she and what I love and I think is so unique about Rebecca as an illustrator.

That's exactly right.

The illustrations are exceedingly accurate and they're also interpreted.

So they're not there's you know, they're not like technical drawings.

They're just they're beautifully, beautifully interpreted.

Still beautifully artistic, but yes, inaccurate.

Yes.

Which I think, you know, that's what makes this a university press books.

University press books need to be, you know, scientifically sound or academically sound.

And yes, this is proof positive that you can do all of that, but also make it for any audience and a younger audience.

Yes.

So, yeah, I think your words and pictures pair together just so wonderfully.

Thank you.

Let's see, I would also want to say to people may have heard you say you're from Maine and then scratching their head like, well, that's that's unusual.

But I think that just goes to show how important not just our estuaries, but all we need, all of us all around need to protect all of our coastlines because it's all of our problem if they go away.

Yes, absolutely.

And many people have asked me that.

They're like, you're a long way from home.

And I said, and I, I do love it.

I love it here.

And absolutely, we do need to care for and steward our wetlands in particularly our estuaries.

They are, I believe, if not the most it's one of the most productive ecosystems on the planet.

And they store a lot of carbon as well.

And what I tell the children when they ask me, you know, you're all the way from Maine, I tell them, I'm from the Gulf of Maine, which is a sea within a sea, and they live on the Gulf of Mexico, which is another sea within a sea.

And one dream I have is if we can work classroom to classroom.

So we have different ecologies.

But these are our two of our unique, unique gulfs in this country.

So I love making those connections across across geography absolute what you're saying.

Yeah, because it's it's all connected, especially when it comes to the ocean.

That must be such a rewarding experience if you can do that, make that connection because all of our world can be a little small.

We can be our own little bubbles, But especially for children, they've only know the place that they're in.

And to open that idea up, yes, even if we're far away, even if we're in a maybe different climate, there are a lot of similarities.

Yes.

Across the nation.

Across the world, even.

Yes.

Yes.

And also just to to grow out of that, too.

I can't imagine how wonderfully rewarding it must be to visit with children.

to bring this message to them, to see that wonder, hopefully in their eyes.

Yes, it's it is an absolute delight.

I like I said, I've written for I've been a science writer almost my entire career so far.

And I it was late in life that I started writing children's books or later in my career, I should say, and I feel like I finally found my people and their ten and under.

It's an absolute joy.

And they do.

I take them through the book writing process, through nature journaling.

And we really work with facts and information and imagining action.

And what they've created is just extraordinary, extraordinary and their imaginations and their hearts.

And the other thing I have noticed in working with many children is we all need I think another deep human need is for a sense of agency, the feeling that we can make a difference.

And I see that especially in children.

So one of the things we talk about in the book is there's a chapter and this is kind of a hybrid picture book, chapter book.

There's one chapter where the main character, C.C., the Young Oyster Catcher, gets tangled in fishing line.

Some children have actually seen that have seen birds on the beach or other sea life.

And in the book, a young girl spots CC trying to escape and gets some adults together to help.

And so the children are very tuned into that.

You can pick up the fishing line off the beach, pick up plastic, keep an eye out on the birds.

And I think, you know, you can see them really light up about that.

You know, we talk about the black skimmers and other birds who nest on the beach.

And there's a dot in one chapter.

There's a dog who's running who gets off his eleotion, is running toward the skimmers.

And we talk about, you know, is that, you know, what happens there?

And the children, you know, we're saying like that's like if we were all sitting in a room and a dragon came in and chased us.

So again, it's very much an invitation.

And I think I really have the sense that the children come away feeling a sense of agency and like they can do something and excited to do that.

I think those little takeaways are so vital.

When I was a kid, I remember there being somebody at one point told me to cut up the plastic can rings.

Yes.

And to this day I don't have them many very often, but if I see one, I'm cutting it out.

And now I know if I see fishing line on the beach, I'm picking it up.

Yes.

And that's such a small thing.

But if you're right, it sticks with you, especially if you know the why.

Yes, it yes, yes.

And change is cumulative.

Change for for the better is cumulative.

We're all we all I, I really believe that years ago I edited a magazine called Hope Magazine, and it was about how positive change is cumulative.

It's all of us.

Yeah.

I also want to touch on the oil or the oystercatchers just a little bit more there, these beautiful birds.

And you talked about the bird banding.

Yes.

Talk a little bit more.

Yes.

So in Texas, the oystercatchers aren't typically migratory.

And whereas in the rest of the country, actually they were I just heard a report of a couple up in Maine.

I was so excited, which is fairly unusual.

So scientists at the Gulf Coast Observatory band these birds to identify them so they can study how they're using habitat, where are they feeding on oyster reefs, what are they eating?

And also the nesting.

They mostly nest on low shell islands just offshore.

And those are, you know, as storms come, those are disappearing.

So that's a real issue for these birds.

But when they're that banded, they have some of that.

They have the USGS metal bands, as many birds are banded, but they have plastic leg bands that don't hurt the birds at all.

And that allows the ornithologists to start to watch the birds from a distance so they don't have to disturb them.

And they can they're studying nest success and whose it's kind of like a soap opera.

Oystercatchers So Barbara So who's pairing with who?

How many eggs are hatching and where so they can track populations and figure out again what habitat to protect.

What to do is these, you know, shell islands are disappearing, but the kids, the kids really like that.

And so I wanted to name the birds.

I didn't want to call them just the oystercatchers or give them a cutesy name.

So I used leg band letters for names.

So they're C and C for C, C, there's PJ.

And so everybody and one page in the book, Rebecca put our initials on the leg bands and, and Laurie Beck sits in the book.

Yeah, that's wonderful.

Yeah.

I think that's such a great way to introduce the kids to it.

And I imagine the, the idea of that web, if the birds are healthy, that means the rest of the ecosystem.

That's healthy.

That's right.

That's a great way to reinforce that idea.

Yes.

How How it's all connected.

Yes.

Yes.

Well, unfortunately, we're running short on time.

This is a fascinating topic and a beautiful book that you have in our final minute.

Can you just tell us what you hope people take away?

gosh.

Well, I hope what people take away from this book is that they get to know and cherish the extraordinary place where they live.

So get to know and cherish the beaches, the estuary, these incredible birds and just let's all put down our phones and and look up.

I think about, you know, the eclipse was a perfect instance of wonder in the in the zone of totality.

I read that Internet usage went down between 40 and 65% because we were all looking up instead of down.

So I hope this book is an invitation to everyone to look around at this beautiful place where we live, learn about it and treasure it, and enjoy it.

Well, thank you so much for being here and for for bringing this message, for writing this book.

It's lovely.

And I, I hope a lot of children read it and get that sense of wonder from you.

Thank you.

Well, unfortunately, that is all the time we've got for today.

The book, again is Matagorda Magic The Hidden Life of a Texas Bay.

Myra, thank you so much.

We'll see you again soon.