Don’t forget, she says, that we hail from the same genetic pool, or more likely, gurgling swamp. In scientifically precise but poetic prose, she writes that we share greater similarities than differences with the electric eel, the tarantula, the tree kangaroo and the snow leopard. Dolittle, Montgomery says she’s always related best to animals and - sometimes straining the patience of her bipedal family members - has long treated her home as a land-bound ark for orphaned animals. Montgomery’s enthusiasm and devotion to Earth’s creatures-and the similarities we share with them - has inspired her readers to get to know the eight-tentacled and big-brained wonders in The Soul of the Octopus, and taken us to the ends of the Earth and back to our own backyards in such award-winning books as Spell of the Tiger and Birdology.Ī real-life Dr. Yet we have evolved almost identical eyes.

“Our lineage goes back a half-billion years ago when everyone was a tube,” says Montgomery, a naturalist and author of many books about animals. That was a simpler time, eons before the octopus and Homo sapiens went their separate evolutionary ways, and certainly long before that highly intelligent cephalopod, which appeared some 300 million years ago, ended up boiled, stewed and fried.

Teach Heart, which designs Humane Education curriculums for teachers, has named Gwen to its recommended book list.Sy Montgomery does.

Gwen is displayed in the California governor's mansion in Sacramento, CA, and part of the State Library's permanent collection.

2020 Winner of the Northern Lights Book Award Honoring 'Children's Literature of Exceptional Merit'.

The book includes a bonus section called More About Chickens, where curious readers can learn that chickens have extraordinary eyesight, a complex language of 24 sounds, and are descended from dinosaurs, among other fun facts about chickens.

Together they discover how extraordinary an ordinary chicken really is.

Using her wits and chicken superpowers, Gwen dodges danger at every turn until she finds safety and friendship with a boy named Mateo. A fateful tornado turns her world upside-down and sideways, landing her in a strange new place that's nothing like the hen house. Gwen has spent her whole life in a big egg-laying hen house, so she knows very little about what chickens can do (besides lay eggs, of course). Winner of a prestigious Northern Lights Book Award, Gwen the Rescue Hen is the heart-warming story about a sharp-witted chicken that inspires compassion for animals.

Gwen the Rescue Hen by Leslie Crawford