Nine Goldfish in David's Pond

"One afternoon, David brought home nine goldfish to swim in the pond...Bright orange goldfish, orange and white goldfish, orange goldfish with black freckles and beautiful black goldfish tumbled out of the bag into the water..." So begins Nine Goldfish in David's Pond by Ellen Hasenecz Calvert, a story of the beauty of a backyard world and the ten beings who inhabit it: a young explorer, still on the cusp of discovering this private world, and the nine multicolored fish who will invite him into it, sharing it with him, teaching him, and making a connection with him as he learns to care for them. It is a soothing story illustrated with charming watercolors, ideal for the child learning responsibility for other living creatures in the world we share. Nine Goldfish in David's Pond is Ellen Hasenecz Calvert's second book. Ellen, a psychologist and prize winning poet, left her native New Jersey in 1989 to come to the Southwest, where she fell in love with the land, the cultures, and the people who lived there. While living in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Ellen wrote the award winning book, Pilgrim: Tales of a Traveling Cat. Presently, Ellen is working on a book of short stories in Santa Fe.