"I think cypress knees are magical," says Cathy Melvin as she points out a smattering of the distinctive, knobby extensions of a cypress tree's root system poking up from the dark, shallow waters of Lorance Creek.
It's a cloudy, chilly, Thursday morning earlier this month and Melvin is strolling along the trail that winds through the Lorance Creek Natural Area near Hensley. This is the place that helped inspire "Cypress Knees and Tupelo Trees: Discovering Plants and Animals of the Swamp," Melvin's charming and fun debut children's book that will be published Saturday by Little Rock's Et Alia Press.
The book is filled with Melvin's colorful, creative collages that are reminiscent of Eric Carle, the author and illustrator of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar," "From Head to Toe," "The Grouch Ladybug" and others. Her text takes readers on a journey into a happy swamp and introduces them to the flora and fauna found there in a style that combines the whimsical and educational.
- Under the water are the swift-swimming shadows
- of the slender Blackspotted Topminnows
- Look out for mud critters with
- two claws and a tail,
- like Red Swamp Crayfish
- who snacks on aquatic snails.
Melvin lives about 10 minutes away from the natural area and started visiting there with her son, Patrick Gentry, in early 2020. Through a program with the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission, Melvin and her family, also including husband Marc Gentry and daughter Cate Gentry, adopted the area about a week before the pandemic hit in March 2020.
"Part of our responsibilities as adopters of this area is to pick up trash and document vandalism or anything else that needs to be addressed," Melvin says.
She learned more about the creek from Ryan Spotts of the Natural Heritage Commission.
"She brought us out here and we explored the area," says Melvin, who retired from the U.S. Public Health Service in 2019. "She would point out things like the dogwood trees and cypress trees, and it got Patrick really excited. It was in the midst of the pandemic, school was virtual and I had two teenagers at home, and this gave us a place to go when it was time to get out of the house."
When they encountered a plant or tree they weren't familiar with they would snap a photo and research it via INaturalist, a plant-identification app. They were also recording the sounds of birds and frogs.
Over time, Melvin began developing an idea for a children's book about some of the things that live in swamps.
"The title came to me first, 'Cypress Knees and Tupelo Trees,' and I thought it would be a real cute children's book. By the end of 2020 we had discovered so many things out here, things that I thought might be interesting to people who visit here or other swamps."
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Melvin is originally from central Oklahoma. Her father worked in the oil industry, and that career took the family to Singapore, Venezuela, Colombia and Spain. This peripatetic life continued until they returned to the U.S. when Melvin was in the sixth grade.
She always had an interest in art but was also into science.
"Art could have been a potential career path," she says. "My art teacher said that I should be an illustrator for textbooks and marry the sciences with art. I loved art, but I just didn't know if that would be the right path for me. I felt more strongly about the sciences."
She earned a degree in marine science and biology from Jacksonville University in Florida and a master's degree in molecular biology at the University of California, Irvine. Art was put aside as work and family took precedence. But when her children were young, Melvin helped them and other students at Little Rock's East End Elementary and Intermediate schools write and illustrate their own picture books; the urge to make things began creeping back into her life.
"I always knew I'd do something with art. Helping them with their creative process planted a seed in me that maybe I could tap into my own creativity to produce something."
She had also signed up for classes at the former Arkansas Arts Center in pastels and watercolor painting.
"I've taken some adult workshops and that gave me a creative outlet, too. I hadn't practiced routinely, but if the opportunity arose and I could fit something into my schedule, I would certainly do that."
To create the images in her book, Melvin would paint construction paper with a nontoxic tempera and then cut the paper into shapes that she used to create the vibrant creatures and plants of the swamp.
"I just used what I had on hand at the time," she says.
The brushstrokes she made on the paper give a distinctive texture to her renderings of flowers, poison ivy, a graceful heron, a cute otter, tadpoles, birds, frogs and more
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Melvin was mostly finished with the book when she contacted Et Alia owner and publisher Erin Wood for a consultation. Melvin knew Norman and Cheryl Lavers, whose book, "100 Insects of Arkansas and the Midsouth: Portraits and Stories," was published by Et Alia.
"I thought that I would get Erin's opinion, get some editing figured out and find out what I would need to do if I wanted to get this book that I had written and illustrated published. I had no clue how to do it."
She made an immediate impression.
"As soon as I opened the files with her artwork, I was obsessed," Wood says. "The level of detail, there is something special about even the simple-seeming eyes the animals have. I felt a real connection."
Wood decided to do more than consult; she wanted to publish the book.
"It was really easy to work with Cathy," she says. "The feedback was going well, and it seemed like it would be a good partnership, and I asked her if she would publish with Et Alia, and here we are."
With her first book about to be released (on Earth Day, by the way), Melvin says she has a couple of other children's books in the works. She's hopeful that her stories and art will inspire young readers to pay more attention to nature.
"Literacy and being curious about the world around you is so important," she says, standing at the end of the wooden boardwalk in the Lorance Creek Natural Area. "Creating children's books about things that kids can see in nature is exciting. I'm hoping that out of this, maybe they will stop, look and listen to the world around them. You can learn a lot of things."