Wolverines

“Because wolver­ines are rare and elu­sive, track­ing down ver­i­fi­able infor­ma­tion about their life cycle and behav­ior was no easy feat. We also strug­gled to find high-qual­i­ty pho­tos. Then, in the mid­dle of my writ­ing process, it sud­den­ly became clear that some of my sources were pur­pose­ly pro­vid­ing me and oth­er writ­ers with misinformation.

“Why was this hap­pen­ing? Because sci­en­tists were try­ing to pro­tect the ani­mals they study. They wor­ried that if writ­ers pub­lished accu­rate, up-to-date infor­ma­tion about how wolver­ines estab­lish ter­ri­to­ries, find mates, and raise their young, it would pro­vide hunters with clues that they could use to locate and kill wolverines.

“I had to work hard to gain the trust of the sci­en­tists, so I could dis­cov­er the truth. Then I had to write care­ful­ly, giv­ing young read­ers a clear, accu­rate pic­ture of wolver­ine life, while also respect­ing the need to keep these endan­gered ani­mals safe. Every word of my man­u­script was care­ful­ly scru­ti­nized by a range of peo­ple — the sci­en­tists, the edi­tors, the read­ing con­sul­tant — whose pri­or­i­ties were often at odds. It took a lot of com­pro­mise and coop­er­a­tion, but ulti­mate­ly, we were able to cre­ate a book that we’re all proud of.”