10/22/2007

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Meet 'Hairy Blenny': New Book Out for Science-loving Kids

Writer:

Kurt Knebusch
knebusch.1@osu.edu
330-263-3776

WOOSTER, Ohio — Ohio State University Extension and the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC) announce the release of Hairy Blenny and the Monkeyface Prickleback, the second collection of the kids’ science column “Smart Stuff with Twig Walkingstick.”

Written at a fourth-grade reading level by ostensible non-fourth-grader Kurt Knebusch of OSU Extension and OARDC, the new book features 33 fun, fact-filled shorts about facets of freshwater life — fish, bugs, frogs, toads, lakes, rivers, wetlands, more — with a bit of saltwater thrown in, too.

All are based on the “Smart Stuff” column, which features a six-legged cartoon bug named Twig Walkingstick and appears once a week in newspapers and on Web sites in Ohio, other states and Canada.

Why bettas bubble, why kissing fish kiss, why peepers peep and why stinkpots stink represent some of the topics.

“Great Big Squid Word,” “Ode to the Otolith,” “Where Have All the Big Fish Gone?” and “Hit in the Head by a High-flying Fat Fish” are some of the chapters.

The book is for kids of all ages who like science and nature, Knebusch said, but is especially for those in grades 3-5 or with an equivalent combination of curiosity and enthusiasm. A liking for terms such as “slime,” “bloop,” “splop” and “French grunt” is preferred but not required.

Hairy Blenny and the Monkeyface Prickleback (5.5 by 8.5 inches, 84 pages) costs $5 per copy plus $2 per copy shipping. Ohio residents, please add 44 cents per copy sales tax.

To order, call (330) 263-3780; e-mail ct-oardc@osu.edu; or write to CommTech, OSU/OARDC, 1680 Madison Ave., Wooster, OH 44691. Make checks payable to The Ohio State University.

Copies are also available at the OARDC Visitor Center, Research Services Building, 1680 Madison Ave., Wooster, 9 a.m.-5 p.m., Monday through Friday.

Knebusch is a science writer for OARDC and OSU Extension, based on OARDC’s Wooster campus. He has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in environmental communications from Ohio State’s School of Environment and Natural Resources and did his graduate work at the university’s Stone Lab at Put-in-Bay on Lake Erie. He is a member of Bioneers; the Ohio Ecological Food and Farming Association; and the Association for Communications Excellence in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Life and Human Sciences. He lives with his family on a small, naturally run garden-farm in Holmes County, Ohio.

Hairy Blenny follows the author-professed success of the first Twig Walkingstick collection, Purple and Green and Stinky in Spring (111 pp., OARDC, OSU Extension), which came out in 2004, sold out and is now out of print, disappearing as fast as and/or smelling very similar to the titular spring-blooming plant of the book.

OARDC and OSU Extension are the research and outreach arms, respectively, of Ohio State’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences.

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Links: “Smart Stuff with Twig Walkingstick,” http://www.ag.ohio-state.edu/~news/archive.php?series=science.