To tell the story of the California condor, some authors have stepped into the mind of a bird. This post looks at 5 examples.
A bird’s perspective
Tag: Fiction
Fictional names
When California condors appear in works of fiction, individual birds are sometimes given their own names. In this post, I note some of these fictional names by quoting the names’ creators.
Zen & the flight of chickadees
I recently stumbled upon a small treasure of a book called The Chickadees: A Contemporary Fable. While chickadees are at the center of this tale, condors play an essential part. Here are some extracts, comments, and images.
Boys’ Life: 1942-1999
During the years 1942-1999, Boys’ Life, the magazine of the Boy Scouts of America, published at least 20 items referring to the California condor. By doing so, this magazine reached an important audience with information about the condor.
This post offers an overview of what boy scouts learned about the California condor from their magazine during the 20th century.
Canyon John
The April 1948 issue of The American Girl magazine features Margaret Leighton’s short story “The Legacy of Canyon John”. A California condor is the heart of this story and one can be seen in Roy Clinker’s accompanying illustrations.
Five years later, “The Legacy of Canyon John” was reprinted in a collection of short stories and with new art work by Robert Sinnott. This multi-volume story collection, edited by Marjorie Barrows, was titled The Children’s Hour (Spencer, 1953). Leighton’s short story is in volume 7: Favorite Mystery Stories.
In this post, I describe Leighton’s story (avoiding spoilers), show the condor illustrations of Clinker and Sinnott, and note how I found the two versions of “The Legacy of Canyon John”.
