Celebrate Nonfiction

Exploring the Joy of Nonfiction Reading and Writing

Nonfiction Authors Dig Deep by Jess Keating

Today we continue the Nonfiction Authors Dig Deep series with an essay by one of my favorite children’s book authors–Jess Keating. Thank you, Jess, for your heartfelt essay.

I’m one of the lucky ones.

I know exactly why I’m here on this earth.
That doesn’t mean I’ve always known what I wanted to do as a career, mind you.
But I knew what I loved. And to me, that’s half the battle to finding your way.

I’ve always been a writer, but the decision
to be an author—in particular, an author for children— happened in a flash.

Trust a poet to provide the words I need
here. Mary Oliver once said:
“Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”

I didn’t realize it when I was younger, but
those three steps form the key to why I’m here. I don’t try to do these things, I need
to. Paying attention, being astonished, and telling about it is my natural
state.

Being a zoologist gave me the ability to pay
attention and be astonished professionally. I was in grad school when I
realized the “tell about it” was missing.

It was doing me no good to tell other
scientists about what I was learning. I wanted to tell the world. I had things to say and needed to reach people who
would get it. By it, I don’t mean the
facts.

I needed them to get the magic.

I woke up one day and said, “I’m going to
write children’s books”.

Knowledge and wisdom are double-edged swords.
The more you learn, the more you fall in love with the world, but the greater
you feel the threat behind precious things.

We learn about fictional villains through
books, but there are villains in real-life, too.

Do you want to know which villain scares me
the most?

This kid.


 


This kid terrifies me, because he exists in
all of us if we let him. He’s a taker. And he misses the point of everything. 

Before I became an author, one of my jobs was
at a wildlife rehabilitation center. We often received calls of wildlife in
urban spaces, and one day, I got a call from a McDonald’s, where they told me a
dead bird was “messing up their drive-thru” line. I prepared my things and made
the short drive there.


It was a ring-necked gull. People often call
them seagulls, but that’s not really true. This bird was splayed by the
drive-thru lane, its legs and wings at impossible angles. Hit by a car.


I steeled myself to clean him up. But as I
knelt down to tuck his wing against his body, his eyes flashed open. Beautiful,
bright-as-a-lemon eyes that cut right through me. Terrified. Hopeful.

He was alive.
People were ordering their Big Macs a few feet away, and this creature was
still alive, twisted and broken in terrible pain. He was surrounded but unseen.
This moment has never left me.

I gave him medication for pain and moved him
over to the side of the parking lot, where a cluster of trees were rustling
above us in that early autumn way. I wanted him to see those leaves. When you
work with animals enough, you get a sense when there’s nothing more you can do.

But, I realized, there was one thing I could do. I didn’t want him
to die alone, in a greasy, littered fast food drive-thru.

I couldn’t save him, but I could witness him.

Maybe it sounds silly. I’m sure the people
picking up their orders thought I was odd. But it didn’t matter.

I don’t know what kind of life he’d had, but
I could make sure that one person on
the planet was there to truly see him. I refused to let him remain unseen a
moment longer. I stayed beside him until he was gone. I still hope that
somewhere in there, he knew he mattered.  

Every animal I’ve met has left an impact on
me. To me, they’ve never been “animals.” They feel like family. Some are what
you might call “majestic” creatures. The wild wolf that stared me down on a
hike in the woods. The pod of orcas that jumped joyously in the Arctic Ocean.
Bears and sharks and eagles.

But some are like the ring-necked gull.
Small. Unassuming. With a secret soul and message if you’re just willing to
witness it.

They all matter.

The truth is, I don’t consider myself a
nonfiction author at all. I’m not a writer. I’m a recruiter. My goal is to recruit readers, kids to the side of
caring. Of empathy for those who aren’t like themselves. Because that’s the
only way to ensure this world is protected from the real villains.

I write to pay attention, and astonish them.
And maybe one day, they’ll tell about it, too.

Jess Keating is
the author of the award-winning nonfiction picture book, Shark Lady, the hilarious and informative World of Weird Animals nonfiction series, as well as the upcoming Elements of Genius middle grade series
and Ocean Speaks about oceanographic
cartographer, Marie Tharp. Her newest picture book series, Ask Me Anything with Dr. Sugarpaws hits bookshelves in 2020. You
can find more about Jess on Twitter at @Jess_Keating, or her website www.jesskeating.com

14 Responses

  7. Beautiful post, Jess. About a half hour ago, I was just talking to my kids about everyone wanting to "be seen" (we had volunteered at a place to make food for the houseless). All the feels reading this one. Thank you!

  8. Oh…my heart. Thank you for everything you do…for being there for the children, for the animals, for humanity. For that sweet bird.

  10. Oh, Jess, that story about the gull has me in tears. What beauty therein in the world that humans can't see. Ty for helping us to "see" better as a zoologist and a writer.

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