By SARAH THOMACK
St. Joseph Post
Shelly Cox is a Naturalist at the Remington Nature Center in St. Joseph and an author of a children’s book published earlier this year.
Cox said the idea for a book started about 10 years ago when she was working with 4-H students as the entomology leader.
“As the students were collecting their insects, many of them said to me that they didn’t really have a way to identify what they were finding, so it put me on the track to writing a field guide to Missouri’s insects and spiders,” Cox said. “At that time, the economy was not doing really well, so finding a way to get it published was very difficult. So after that, I just kind of put the book aside and didn’t give it a lot of thought until just recently when a friend of mind, Julie Casey, with Amazing Things Press, said, ‘We should do something with your book.’”
They came up with the idea to take the book, chapter by chapter, and turn it into children’s books with the first book in the series titled, ‘Butterflies and Moths.’
“This is just a way to introduce children to insects in a full-color, informative, fun way,” Cox said. “This book covers most of the common butterflies and moths that you would find in northwest Missouri and really throughout all of our state. Each picture was photographed by myself, a few were taken by some friends of mine, so all the information that you would find in the book will have a full-color photograph to go along with it so that the children can actually see what’s being described.”
Cox said there are also a lot of fun facts and trivia that many people may not know about butterflies and moths, along with vocabulary and terminology related to insects.
“If they’re outside in the yard, most kids love butterflies and moths, they’re easily accessible so that would be something that they could go and find something in the yard, pick up that book and compare what they’re finding and learn about them.”
According to Cox, the next book in the series, ‘Beastly Bugs,’ should be published soon and will be about spiders, centipedes, millipedes, scorpions and more. She adds that the original idea of publishing a field guide may still happen in the future, whether it be in a physical book form or an eBook.
You can find the book Butterflies and Moths for sale at the Remington Nature Center or online at Amazon.