by Frances Kwiatkowski (Author)
Kingdom of Longleaf is a nonfiction children's picture book illustrated with professional photographs. It will introduce young readers to an amazing, beautiful, and fragile ecosystem- one as rich with biodiversity and fascinating species as the rain forest, yet which is practically in their own backyards. The Longleaf pine forest is home to unique species such as the red-cockaded woodpecker, the gopher tortoise, the indigo snake, and carnivorous pitcher plants. Like the rain forest, this ecosystem is fragile and threatened. Only 3% of the original 90 million acres of Longleaf forest remain. Unlike the rain forest, however, Longleaf pines live here in the southeastern United States... and only here.
"Once upon a time, in a land of water and fire, a kingdom grew. The kingdom was a majestic forest, full of air and light, wiregrass and wildflowers, and the music of the wind in the crowns of the trees- Longleaf pines. The kingdom was home to many wild creatures and plants, some of which lived nowhere else on earth, and some of whom created complex symbiotic relationships with each other and with the landscape itself. Long ago, the forest was so immense that it touched the shores of two seas and covered almost 100 million acres...but that was once upon a time..."