On February 3rd, it snowed here! Snow is a rare occurrence here, not happening often and melting fast, so every snow is special and fun.

Even better, it was snow at the beach! You know what else is based around snow and beaches? My book, Penny and the Arctic’s Echo! Seeing the flakes fall and dusting of white by the gray water reminded me of my book, and the inspiration behind it.

(Above, from left to right- Snow at the beach, snowy trees out the window, and snow on the dune trails.) Pictures by me.

As you can tell, I love nature. Nature is plastered all over my website. Penny and the Arctic’s Echo is a nature themed book, I love drawing and photographing nature and I love spending my time in nature. Everyone who has bought or heard of my book knows that my love for nature was the greatest inspiration for it. But, I wanted to tell you more details about my inspiration from the natural world.

My main goal was to show people the beauty of nature to inspire them to help it, rather than the harsh doings of humans to scare them into helping it.

We all hear way too much about how terrible climate change is. We hear what horrible things are happening to beautiful things. But we never hear about those beautiful things. Why would we want to help those beautiful things if we only hear the bad things happening to them? We need to see the beauty of it so we can be pushed to save that beauty.

I’m so passionate about climate change because I’ve seen the beauty of nature. I’ve felt the joy and magic it brings me. If you don’t know that love for something, there’s no reason to fight for it. But if young ones are able to see how beautiful and amazing the creatures and nature featured in my book are, maybe they will want to fight for it, maybe they will want to go out there and explore. At least I hope so…

Penny is a chickadee, a very cute and small bird we all know. I wanted to capture the long time essence of how something small can do something big. No matter how small you are, you can have a big heart full of bravery. I wanted this to be an inspiring essence throughout the book where you are ultimately always reminded how small and inexperienced Penny is, but showing you that being small and inexperienced is not a bad thing.

Penny feels completely helpless and out of her place when she arrives at the arctic. I tried to potray this more as feeling emotionally out of her place rather than physically. Some species of chickadees thrive in the arctic, and chickadees are made for the cold, with all their floofy feathers. Penny’s main problem isn’t physically having to deal with the cold of the Arctic (even though it is quite a harsh change of environment), its her emotional response to being away from home. But she still fights through it and finds a way to get back.

This reflects upon the small things in nature being the most important. The biggest oak and the biggest sunflower grow from the tiniest seeds, the tallest mountains are made up of crowds of small trees, those same small trees have millions of leaves, and those same leaves have many veins. Nature is made up of the small things, and the small things are made up of the tiny things, and every tiny thing keeps nature balanced.

As we wrap this up, I want to remind you to think about the tiny things in nature, about the beauty and wonderful feeling of the fresh air we often forget about. Wonder about how YOU can help the nature of the world around you, even in small ways, because nature is the foundation is everything, the land we live on.

That is all for today, but don’t worry, more posts on my inspiration for Penny and the Arctic’s Echo will be out soon. Thank you so much for reading this blog post and listening to my words on nature and my inspiration.

Link to buy Penny and the Arctic’s Echo-

https://www.amazon.com/Penny-Arctics-Echo-Lucy-Matisse/dp/B0DQQ7XMT8