A bee peers out from a noir mystery, listening for her Queen, still tempted by the dark delights in the garden. • Honey bee | Apis mellifera
Author: Rick Lieder
Painter and photographer Rick Lieder has been creating fine art and conceptual illustration for many years. His art has appeared on award-winning novels ranging from mysteries and science fiction, to books based on the X-Files TV series, to Newbery Award-winning books for children, A Single Shard and Princess Academy.
His work has been published widely in magazines and online (Orion, Natural
History Magazine and others), and by HarperCollins, Random House, Simon &
Shuster and Farrar, Straus & Giroux and more.
Recently he has concentrated on a body of work centering on ordinary backyard wildlife. These photographs capture the unique qualities of light interacting with the natural world, including luminous photographs of honey bees and small birds in flight, glowing fireflies mating and hovering over twilight fields, mosquitoes with a belly full of blood, and new-born praying mantis nymphs emerging from their egg cases.
STEP GENTLY OUT is his new nature picture book for all ages, a collaboration between painter and photographer Rick Lieder and novelist and poet Helen Frost.
Three starred reviews from Kirkus, Publisher's Weekly and Booklist. Kirkus Reviews has selected Step Gently Out as one of four outstanding poetry titles for children to be featured on the Kirkus website for National Poetry Month, along with an interview.
A website with all the news, reviews and up-to-date information for the book, plus a book trailer: http://bugdreams.com/sgo/
Barely Three Dimensional
Barely Three Dimensional • Too late to send her back, tempted by a foraging pavement ant, the path across a flower just barely three dimensional. Pavement ant | Tetramorium caespitum Praying mantis | Tenodera aridifolia sinensis
One Eye Half-Shut
An occasional sojourner in the pocket of a forgotten flower, every nook and hidden place glowing, navigating the underworld with one eye half-shut. * Pavement ant | Tetramorium caespitum
The Dazzling Sun
The Dazzling Sun • Settling in the pauses between seasons, obscure coordinates frame a songbird’s journey past a dying, dazzling sun.
Tales of Small Spaces
Never quite able to make the leap to the big time, a katydid with a light touch tells tales of small spaces. • Greater Angle-wing Katydid | Microcentrum rhombifolium
Old-School Magic
Stranded in a wiry riddle, a Black Swallowtail butterfly caterpillar finds old-school magic in a labyrinth of fennel.Black Swallowtail butterfly | Papilio polyxenes
Leaping Into Spring
A late-feeding cardinal leaps into spring, leaving an after-image behind, along with his shadow. Northern Cardinal | Cardinalis cardinalis