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THE MANATEE'S BIG DAY
(Un gran día para la Señorita Manatí)
A Costa Rica Animal Adventure
(Aventuras animales en Costa Rica)
In Costa Rica’s Tortuguero canals, a gentle young manatee is threatened by a surprise visitor: an enormous bull shark. Can the manatee inspire the other animals—including a boa, a monkey, and a shimmer of hummingbirds—to fight the shark together? The Manatee’s Big Day is a bilingual (English/Spanish) narrative for ages 4-8, with full-color illustrations and a 20-page science section with fun facts about Costa Rica biodiversity, the food web, and all the animals featured in the story.
Praise
“Events unfold in quirky and improvisational ways…valuable as a bilingual book and as an introduction to Costa Rica’s abundant wildlife.”
—The Tico Times
Behind the Book
I’ve always been drawn to manatees, but after moving to Costa Rica, I became obsessed. Then one day, in the canals of Tortuguero, my rickety paddleboat collided with something enormous. I thought it might be a Bull Shark— they swim up the canals from the ocean, at home in both salt and fresh water. You can imagine my relief when I spotted the endearingly lumpy head of a manatee. Both parties to the collision came away shaken but unharmed. The next day, I started taking notes for a story that would become The Manatee’s Big Day.