Rachel was born and raised in Madison, Wisconsin, and earned her bachelor’s degree in art and graphic design from the University of Wisconsin Madison. She lives and works as an artist in the Southwest. Beyond design and fine art, Rachel holds a special interest in ecology, evolution, and extinction.

5% of all of her book and art profits are donated to the World Wildlife Fund and the Folsom Zoo Animal Sanctuary. You can purchase the original artwork, note cards and prints from the book at her website – Dillon Design, visit her blog, Children’s Book of Endangered Animals or see her work at Artists for Conservation.

Why a children’s book?

I asked her how her concern for animals prompt her to write a children’s book. Here’s Rachel’s reply:

I have always been an animal lover. I had cats, dogs, and horses growing up. My mom would just smile and laugh every time I brought a new cat home form the stables I kept my horses. I think animals became what I relied on for comfort. Often, growing up, I felt more connected to animals than I did to people. They were there for me to laugh with, cry on and talk to.

When I was around 16, my Aunt and Uncle from Australia sent me a book called “Endangered Animals of Australia.” I had already travelled twice to that country and loved it very much. To see a book of animals from Australia that were all endangered, really heightened my awareness of the issue.

I went in a creative direction for my degree at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Graphic Design and fine art projects allowed me freedom to focus on what I cared about. So, I painted animals, and my designs almost always featured nature.

In my last year of college, I had an independent study. My project choice was to photograph, research, write and design a book about the endangered species at the Henry Vilas Zoo, a free local zoo. I had no idea how big the project was and only completed a draft of the booklet. In the process of making the booklet, the zoo allowed me to get up close to some of the animals to photograph them. I climbed in the ringtail lemur’s cage; got hissed at by an angry lioness; felt the size and power of a tiger as I stood next to its cage; and quietly took a peak at a day-old giraffe baby. I treasure all the special moments I had and will never forget the feeling of awe I had for those incredible animals.

All of these experiences have molded and shaped my love for and desire to help animals. I feel such heartache when I hear of the problems so many animals face. When I became a mother, my passion for animals shifted to a question, “how can I help these animals, so my children can live in the same world as them?”

My daughter was just a baby when I started writing and painting my children’s book, Through Endangered Eyes. I didn’t even know I was starting a book when I sat down and wrote a poem about an elephant. That poem was so fun and lyrical, I decided to write one about the Green Sea Turtle, and then the process continued as I picked seven more species. I had already painted a Green Sea Turtle and Tiger and felt perhaps I had a real book shaping up.

I have hope when I look at children. They are filled with wonder and passion and immediately want to fix a problem when they hear it exists. It is hard to share with the children I read to about the issues endangered and threatened species face, but I don’t want to sugarcoat it either. I want children to know there are many things we need to change in our habits, or we will continue to create a more unbalanced planet.

As children, Jennifer Harris and Cameron Quick were both social outcasts. They were also each other’s only friend. So when Cameron disappears without warning, Jennifer thinks she’s lost the only person who will ever understand her. Now in high school, Jennifer has been transformed. Known as Jenna, she’s popular, happy, and dating, everything “Jennifer” couldn’t be—but she still can’t shake the memory of her long-lost friend.

When Cameron suddenly reappears, they are both confronted with memories of their shared past and the drastically different paths their lives have taken.

I enjoyed Sweethearts immensely. It’s a great novel for young women and while there’s some very adult topics, namely child abuse and parental neglect, the writing and story are age appropriate. For more on Sara and her books check out her website at www.sarazarr.com.

Five Questions for Sara Zarr

1. Sara, your book Sweethearts has a bittersweet ending. Were you trying to share with your readers “better to have loved than have not loved at all” when it comes to friendship?

No – there’s no agenda or lesson to the ending, it’s just what I felt was authentic for those characters in that situation. Without giving too much away, I didn’t see how it could turn out any other way given all of the circumstances. Maybe a few years after the ending of the book, there’s still a chance for a different outcome to their relationship.

2. Do you really believe kids who are ugly ducklings can turn into swans while still in high school? Or does personal reinvention only happen when people “grow up”?

I don’t see Sweethearts as an ugly-duckling-to-swan story. I see Jenna as a girl whose primary goal was emotional and social survival, and once she lost her only friend—and without the support of siblings or a parent who could take a break from work long enough to guide her—she only did what she felt she needed to do to get through. That said, adolescence is a time of constant change and growth and the trying on of new identities, so, yeah, I think anyone can do a surface reinvention in high school. Of course, it’s not necessarily a true transformation.

3. In Sweethearts, social outcast Jennifer transforms into pretty, smart and popular Jenna. With movies like Napoleon Dynamite celebrating the quirky high schooler, why did you decide to change her? I almost wished she embraced her outcast status and did something positive with it instead of playing by society’s rules of thin, cute, and nice.

This relates to the previous question—Jennifer/Jenna has limited options here. If she were to embrace her status without any support in the form of friends or family, what would that look like given the kind of bullying she had to endure? How would that actually work for a fifth-grader? Again, I don’t really have an agenda when I write other than to tell, authentically, the story I’m working with. It wasn’t so much that I decided to change her, as she had to change to survive. Other than in movies like Napoleon Dynamite, high school is not renown for celebrating the quirky outsider. Of course, this all points to one of the central debates about literature for young people—should you portray the world as it is or as you wish it would be? I do write realistic fiction, and like to think that I portray the world as I wish it was within the realistic confines of the world as it is.

4. Both Cameron and Jenna have been neglected to various degrees by their parents. One saves himself and the other is saved by a loving step-parent. Are you hoping that your book will reach kids who are neglected and give them hope?

When I was about 11, my mom remarried and I wound up with a great stepfather who changed our lives for the better. He died this past June, and I’m happy to tell a story that includes a non-evil stepparent! Maybe readers will see the character of Alan, who is pretty low-key, and recognize characteristics of a parent or stepparent or adult in their lives who might already be there ready, willing, and able to provide support.  

5. Growing up were you more like a Jennifer or a Jenna? What helped you (books, parents, teachers, etc.) get through your emotional teenage years?

There are some things I share with both of them, but I was never as isolated as either of them. I had a sister and always had friends. There were periods of loneliness, and my home was somewhat unstable in my early years so there were money issues and feelings of not being certain about what each day would hold and sadness about my father’s inability to be the kind of dad I wanted. My mom, though functionally a single parent, did a fantastic job with us and paid a lot more attention than Jennifer’s mom.

Probably the single most stabilizing force in my childhood and adolescence was church. I grew up in church and attended every Sunday with my mother and sister, and later my step dad, for virtually all of my youth. I didn’t always believe or enjoy it, but it created a second circle of family and community in my life…sort of a protective layer of adults who were looking out for me, and there was also the guiding belief that there was something more going on in life than what was immediately apparent. With that kind of regular interaction with a core group of people, it would have been nearly impossible for me to fall through the cracks.