Armadillo Antics

Austin, Bo, Charley, and Danny are newborn armadillos who live in the Texas Hill Country under a spacious oak tree they share with Mr. Oliver, a great horned owl who helps their mother watch over them when they are not sleeping. But as Mr. Oliver and Mother Armadillo already know, keeping the four little boys safe from all the dangers in their environment is not an easy task. As the boys’ skin hardens into shells, they slowly begin to emerge from their den. With help from their mother who teaches them where to find delicious food like ants, termites, spiders, and worms, Austin, Bo, Charley, and Danny begin exploring the perilous world around them. While Mother Armadillo guides the boys to recognize their predators and survive each threat, her biggest fear is that they will become a hillbilly bump in the road. Now only time will tell if they can survive their frightening encounters and become the armadillos she has always dreamed they could be. Armadillo Antics is the charming and educational tale of four armadillos on a coming-of-age journey as they learn to find food, protect themselves from predators, and interact with others of their kind.

A humorous, alliterative alphabet book that focuses on animals from all over the world. The book concludes with a glossary of animals included in the book.

An ode to one man’s lifelong love affair with hunting “Valdène’s wondrous field memoir is a rich sportsman’s miscellany— memorable and erudite fowling lore, camp etiquette, ballistics, poaching ethics, glorious anecdote, bloody ducks, persistent bawdiness, and better wine than you or I'll ever drink—all elegantly spun as an affectionate and sentimental education of loss and renewal. It’s a terrific book.” —Richard Ford Part memoir, part history, The Fragrance of Grass stands as a testament to Guy de la Valdène’s deep love of, and abiding respect for, the natural world and all that inhabit it. Set in places as far afield as France and Montana, Saskatchewan and Florida, this is a beautifully written book that is also an elegant treatise on everything from dogs, birds, and wildlife to food, wine, and women. The Fragrance of Grass will be treasured by all sportsmen and by the readers of Tom McGuane and Jim Harrison. The author’s first book in nearly a decade, it is now being published to coincide with the paperback edition of his classic Red Stag. FROM THE INTRODUCTION I am watching a thousand feathers—grey partridge feathers—floating high on the surface of the pond in front of the cabin I pretend to work in. I have plucked a million feathers from the bodies of all the grey partridge I have cooked in my life, beautiful golden-brown feathers that match the fall colors of the cypress tress that grow on the edge of my pond. It is November, and all at once winter includes me. On the porch of the cabin there is a wooden rocking chair, weathered and comfortable, that I sit in every day. On quiet afternoons I think about the slowing growth of the loblolly pines I have been watching for twenty years, the everchanging face of the pond now active with fish, and the condition of the natural world outside of my custody. . . . I have hunted at least one hour a day for three months a year, ever since I was eight years old. That translates into more than 5,000 hours in the field, a lifetime walk that, under different circumstances, might have taken me from Paris to Istanbul and back. If to this hike I add the time I have spent shooting . . . I can safely assume that I have had my hands on the stock of a gun for one whole year of the sixty-plus that I have been around. I like to walk, and I know guns.

The armadillo, a slow, dull-witted, dirt-eating creature resembling a prehistoric rodent, has firmly established itself in the folklore of the South and Southwest. Despite its lemming-like compulsion for self-destruction, the armadillo survives in large numbers and, as this volume duly records, continues to impose its presence on modern society.