SNAKE TO THE SEA is an accordion fold book made by Ron and all the students of Wilson Elementary in Wilson, Wyoming. With much help from artist, Jocelyn Slack, the kids created the book to tell the story of the Snake River from its headwaters in Wyoming to its eventual meeting with the Pacific Ocean.

The Snake River watershed springs to life in illustrations of cougars, bears, snakes, and more. A storyline tells of how Raven paid a visit to the kids and to all the animals living along the river. Raven let them know it was their responsibility to teach others about the Snake and to take care of the river's waters and life forms.

While kids were busy painting and writing, a Wilson Elementary teacher created a DVD journey down the river using Google Earth to help students learn more about the river and its many environmental issues, including the many dams that block historic runs of salmon.

SNAKE TO THE SEA was inspired by another big book:

WHALESTREET was created by 800 students at Tussing Elementary with a little help from Ron and a lot of help from artist, Amy Yaich and art teacher, Mary Sheridan. Kids poured through ocean books, studied the path of their local streams and rivers, and created a story of how their local whale decided to leave Ohio and return to the sea. WHALESTREET grew from the many wetland and art projects that constantly arise from the creative minds at Tussing Elementary. Ron tries to visit the school as often as possible and has been lucky to team with Mary and staff to create projects like WHALESTREET. The big books are now traveling to other schools and have already inspired many "Little Books" that accompany WHALESTREET and SNAKE TO THE SEA, helping tell stories about creatures living in rivers, ponds, and the ocean. Both big books offered students a chance to write and illustrate pieces of the big story of watersheds --- all the land and water connected to a river or stream. Many students chose to write detailed accounts of their favorite creature of land, stream, or the sea. Others wrote fictional accounts of a whale's journey or their own story of catching a fish, sailing the sea, or floating on a river.

Watersheds hold within them all of our culture and history as well as the ecological ties that bind us to the land (Aina) and ocean (Kai). Malama i ke aina. Malama i ke kai. Protect the land, protect the sea.

Contact Ron to arrange a visit from one of the big books or to start a big book project at your school. Here too is a recipe for making a big book of you own:

Our big books were made with foamboard. Use full size sheets to make a book like Snake to the Sea, or cut to size as we did in Whalestreet. Sheets come in a convenient 16x20 size for "smaller" big books.

Attach pages of the accordion fold book with Scotch packaging tape, leaving just enough space between each sheet to allow the pages to close. Weπve opened and closed Whalestreet hundreds of times with no rips or tears.

Whalestreet seems just right for an entire watershed and ocean book. It has 20 pages.

Book binding tape or any type of fabric tape can then be applied over the smooth packaging tape and around top and bottom edges of each page. This allows paint to adhere.

Covers were made by cutting large cardboard boxes, then covering with canvas. The canvas was pasted to the box using white glue. Lots of white glue. Acrylic paints were used to paint the cover scenes and small boxes and pouches were attached directly to the surface of the covers with glue or attached in colorful fabric pouches. Brass boat hardware was used for some Whalestreet attachments.

Hundreds of ocean, river, and watershed books were used as reference by the kids and Aminah Robinson's wonderful, A STREET CALLED HOME was referred to again and again for inspiration. Ron's books with Tammy Yee and Evon Zerbetz (WHALEMAIL and SWIMMING WITH HUMUHUMU) were also constant sources of inspiration, especially for creating little postcards, small books, and sealife imagery. Jocelyn Slack's trout paintings were invaluable in making Snake to the Sea and Pat Clayton's w beautiful underwater photos of trout of the west also dazzled young Wyoming artists.