Some People are so Talented, Part 2

This is part 2 of my blog post about Robin Apple’s art. Along with painting beautiful art on river rocks, I also learned during my visit that Robin illustrates children’s stories. She gave me a CD with art from a story that she and a friend finished recently. These stories have an environmental topic to help raise awareness in children. Here’s a synopsis and a few pieces of art from Refuge: All Plants and Animals Protected:

“Malachi the educated mouse meets and names D’rats the wise-cracking street rat in the dingy alleys of a large northern city. They learn of a wildlife refuge in the South and decide to move there to escape the dangers of the city and the vermin eradication program. Accidentally deposited on a river barge by a garbage truck, they meet the first of many wildlife friends on their way to the refuge. After being washed overboard from the barge, they make their way to a farm where they are introduced to several snakes, Owlfred the owl, Rasputin the hound dog, and other residents of the country by a young lady raccoon that they manage to save along the way.

Thus begins their education of the dangers of the wilderness that they encounter during their adventures in their search for the refuge. They are rescued from the hound by Ms. Pooey U, the skunk who thinks she is beautiful. They learn that Owlfred has no love for the evil snake, Eeede, who destroyed his nest and ate his eggs. They meet and dine with the friendly and industrious Paddlewhackers, a family of beavers who have dammed a stream near the farm and created a habitat for all the wild animal inhabitants of the area.

Their fear of mankind is reinforced when men blow up the beaver dam and flood the fields, washing D’rats and Malachi away in the ensueing flood. Their friends search for them amid the wreckage, and finding all their group safe, everyone cooperates to rebuild their community and help each other to find new homes. Once the beaver lodge and the beaver dam are rebuilt, the beaver kits retrieve a strange flat board washed downstream in the flood and erect it on the site, proclaiming that this is their new home.”