Today is my stop on the Book Tour for the stunning illustrated non fiction book for children
ANTARCTICA: The Melting Continent
To celebrate this brilliant and beautiful new book
I have a guest post from the author Karen Romano Young
Visiting Antarctica
Pinch me.
That’s what some people say when something that seems completely unreal is happening. Pinch me to let me know I’m really physically here. If I feel the pain of the pinch, I’ll know this isn’t just a dream.
Pinch me that we’re really going to Antarctica — flying all the way from New York to southern Chile, boarding a ship to cross the Drake Passage, steaming into the Neumayer Channel on the way to Palmer Station.
I felt like saying “Pinch me” every five minutes in Antarctica. Pinch me when I wake in the morning and look out at the snowy mountains of the Antarctic Peninsula — so huge and untouched — trailing off to the south.
Pinch me, when I walk outside, clutching the railing that’s there so I won’t get lost in a blizzard, and see an albatross soaring overhead.
Pinch me, when I feel the telltale rumble of the calving glacier, see a mass of ice slide down its face, hear the enormous distant ka-bloop it makes entering the water, watch the wave the newborn iceberg makes sweep across the harbor.
Pinch me, when our small boat skims through the harbor and passes a leopard seal eating the bloody last of its penguin breakfast. (Pinch me — and also, shudder!)
Pinch me, when a whale spouts just ahead of our boat, then roars up out of the water and thunders down onto the sea surface. (Pinch me — and also, whack!)
Pinch me, when we return to shore and have to use the side door to the lab, because an enormous crab eater seal is lolling there, blocking the front door.
Pinch me, each time I realize that I’m here to write, to draw, to photograph, to record, to take all the notes I can, learn all the science I can, have all the adventures I can.
Each morning comes later, as the season changes to winter. We began in March with ten hours of daylight, and we’ll leave with only four — four hours that are mostly sunrise and sunset, every shade of rose and orange and violet decorating the sky above the sea. We began with flocks of Gentoo penguins, and now there are only one or two stragglers on our rocks.
One more photograph. One more drawing. One more sentence. One more day. And then we’re on the ship, going back north. Pinch me (and also, hand me a tissue.)
And then at last, back home, in an ordinary town, an ordinary house, into my ordinary mailbox, comes a package containing the book I began in Antarctica. Pinch me, it’s finally here! It’s finally real!
And I can finally share the story of all that happened. And you’re here to read it! Pinch me — because that seems like a beautiful dream, as well.
ANTARCTICA: The Melting Continent by Karen Romano Young, illustrated by Angela Hsieh out now in hardback (£14.99, What on Earth Books)
I will be sharing more of this book over on Instagram
I would love you to come and follow me there
