Helmkamp, Elizabeth M.: - I've loved nature my whole life. When I was a little girl I often chose the purple-brown coated okapi for my favorite animal instead of the horse, and made "playgrounds" for the earthworms in our garden. I graduated in 2020 with a biology degree from Dordt University. I was inspired to write this book partially because so many animal ABC's use a stereotypical set of animals, even though there are so many stunning animals out there, and also because I wanted to share my love of animals with my family and friends and their kids. So, I picked a bunch of my favorites for the letters of the alphabet, and started drawing and writing poems to accompany them.