“Animal Stories 6,” a new Claire Suminski book, is releasing mid-April with a new collection of stories about animals, including a feature about Kool, the dog Gary Shields befriended in Vietnam.
Suminski expects the book to come back from the printers and be ready to ship by the middle of the month and for now is running a pre-order special where participants can save $2 per copy through the suminskifamilybooks.com website. The first $1,000 in sales will be donated to KIDS Place.
“Animal Stories” is a series of local stories on nature to help encourage children around grade four to build a relationship and understanding of the outdoors.
“It’s a concern of mine that children are being deprived of the benefits of enjoying the great outdoors. Outdoor activity opens up opportunities to build life skills and increases physical health, builds emotional well-being, increases appreciation and respect for nature and encourages imagination and creativity,” Suminski said. “A horseback ride or a walk in the woods far surpasses staring at a screen for recreation.”
The previous book in the series, “Animal Stories 5” featured stories about dogs, opossums, bald eagles, bears, horses and more. The sixth book adds stories about rabbits, mice, otters, butterflies and fireflies to the mix. Each book contains 10-12 animal stories, and Suminski said by the time she has 10 books she will have collected over 100 stories.
The feature story, referenced in the cover art, is “Kool,” a story about the Australian Basenji adopted by former Franklin High School principal and current Macon County Commissioner Gary Shields while serving in the Vietnam War.
“He was in an irrigation ditch, which was like a stream along the side of a field, and he was crossing it,” Suminski said. “He could see an animal swimming towards them and he thought it was a mongoose … as it got closer, he saw it was a young dog. So he grabbed a hold of it.”
“He said it was very hot all the time in the swamp, and he took the dog and put him up on his shoulder and the dog took right to him. He felt cool on his skin, so he named him Kool,” she said.
Shields continued to serve with Kool for 15 months between 1968 and 1969 and said Kool saved his life and his platoon’s lives several times.
While most collections feature an eclectic selection of stories about a variety of animals, sometimes the Animal Stories books have themes tying the stories together. The fourth edition focused on stories about farm animals; the fifth edition was centered around cooperation between animals and humans.
“When I start working on ‘Animal Stories 7’ I don’t want it to be all about dogs or all about horses,” Suminski said. “I try to have many different animals represented.”
The stories are primarily collected locally from Macon County residents like Suminski, with a few exceptions. A story about a diver meeting a sperm whale and a story about nursing a dog back to health were taken from a cruise Sumisnki was on and she has considered building her stories from living in the Adirondaks of update New York into a special edition.
A very common theme in the books is the tendency of animals to be motivated by and drawn to food.
From those collected in Macon County, Shields’ story about Kool is the farthest away an animal story has taken place.
Suminski said a popular part of each book are the games at the end for children. She adds games, journal activities and other assignments in theme with the rest of the book, and the addition has been a success for both children and adults.
Stories for this book were contributed by Donna Nelson, Donna MacDonald, Kathy Kuhlman, Denise Tiemissen, Gary Shields, Deena Bouknight and Libby Weber.
Susan Swedlund provides the watercolor illustrations the books are known for while other illustrations and artwork came from Sue Brown of the Macon County Art Association and photographer Libby Webber. The front cover art was created for Gary Shields by Sheila Moffitt as part of an Art Association project.