Nationally acclaimed author to visit Weatherly district

Sy Montgomery, the nationally acclaimed author, will be visiting the Weatherly Area School District on May 27 and 28 to share her experiences as a writer and world traveler. Ms. Montgomery has explored some of the Earth's greatest jungles and met some of its most intriguing creatures. Her exciting career combines many of the skills children are learning now in schools, from writing to science and from foreign language to physical fitness,

While conducting research for books, films, and articles, Sy Montgomery has been chased by an angry silverback gorilla in Zaire and bitten by a vampire bat in Costa Rica. She has worked in a pit crawling with 18,000 snakes in Manitoba and handled a wild tarantula in French Guiana. Among her adventures with the animals, the author was hunted by a tiger in India and she swam with piranhas, electric eels, and dolphins in the Amazon.

Her latest, nationally best-selling book for adult readers is a love story, a true one, about home, about family, and particularly about a pig. The Good Good Pig: The Extraordinary Life of Christopher Hogwood is a memoir of comfort and joy shared with a 750-pound Budda Master, who happened to have a flexible nose disk and a curly tail.

Montgomery's newest children's book, Saving the Ghost of the Mountains: An Expedition Among Snow Leopards in Mongolia, was researched in the Altai Mountains of the Great Gobi. Upon release, the book joined the award-winning "Scientist in the Field" series that she pioneered with photographer Nic Bishop for Houghton Mifflin.

Sy Montgomery writes for adults and children, for print and broadcast, in America and overseas, in an effort to reach as wide an audience as possible at what she considers a critical turning point in human history. "We are on the cusp of either destroying this sweet, green Earth or revolutionizing the way we understand the rest of animate creation." She says, "It's an important time to be writing about the connection we share with our fellow creatures.

Montgomery has written and developed two television documentaries for National Geographic, and she is a contributor to the national environmental radio show "Living on Earth." She lectures widely on conservation topics at zoos, museums, universities and schools.

Writing about science, natural history, and conservation for children has become an increasingly important priority for the author. In spring 2010, Montgomery and Bishop contributed another volume to the Scientists in the Field series of books, which they founded for Houghton Mifflin.

Parents and community members are invited to meet and talk with Sy Montgomery on Thursday, May 27th at 7:00 P.M. in the Middle School cafeteria. On Friday, May 28th Ms. Montgomery will be spending the day with students at the elementary and middle schools where she will be featured at an assembly. Afterward, she will be visiting classrooms and signing books for the students.

If anyone has questions regarding the author's visit, please contact Mrs. Barbara Sipler at the Elementary school at 427- 8687. Mrs. Julia Watkins, Title I Instructional Aide, and Mrs. Barbara Sipler, Title I Coordinator are coordinating this program.