Reading time is my kiddos and my time together. We enjoy snuggling up and interacting with the pages and each other. One of our favorite books right now is Snowball’s Antarctic Adventures by Tim Ostermeyer. The book stars Snowball and Emperor penguin. It’s a journey with Snowball and the other penguins, exploring the Antarctic landscape and finding other wildlife.
Tim Ostermeyer is a master photographer and Snowball’s Antarctic Adventures is a canvas of his talent. For more than 25 years Ostermeyer has ventured into the harshest environments capturing shots very few people ever have the opportunity to capture. Snowball’s Antarctic Adventures captures these moments, including a rare photo on the cover of a penguin chick on its mother’s feet that only 50 people each year are able to see!
In March, Ostermeyer’s debut children’s book, The Adventures of Rusty and Ginger Fox, received the Mom’s Choice Award. “The Adventures of Rusty & Ginger Fox” is a children’s book about 2 baby foxes named Rusty and Ginger growing up in the wild and experiencing wonderful adventures. Rusty and Ginger make friends with some friendly deer, dangerous animals (including cougar, bobcats, a wolf, and some bears), find safety on Treasure Island, and befriend two little girls who help them open the treasure chest they find there. Inside the chest, the foxes and the children both find exciting treasures. This enjoyable storyline is accompanied by beautiful wildlife photography, a “fact box” with ten facts about each of the seven animals in the book, and a set of each animal’s footprints so that children will not only have a fun story to enjoy, but also educational facts, and realistic animal footprints to help them recognize different types of tracks in the wild.
It’s gorgeous whether reading this book in warm weather or cold weather. The photographs have text overlay, and throughout the book, there are interesting facts about the native animals that reside in the antarctic region.
The story is in rhyme, which tends to appeal to us. I thought the story was good. However, my children and I tend to read this book by looking at the breath-taking photographs and talking about them. Li’l Man likes to sit on the couch and make up his own story as the pages come to life for him. I almost think the book would be more beautiful without the words!
Tim Ostermeyer is a Master Photographer who has won over 250 first-place awards for his photography. He has been named ‘Photographer of the Year’ nine times by various organizations and has had fourteen images published in the Professional Photographers of America Loan Collection books. Tim has a studio in Allen, Texas, and travels around the world taking photographs of wildlife.
