Children’s Book Review: Olinguito Speaks Up / Olinguito Alza La Voz by Cecília Velástegui

Cecília's 36-page book, Olinguito Speaks Up / Olinguito alta la voz, is available -- in bilingual English/Spanish format for readers aged 7-10 years -- through Libros Publishing LLC.

Artist Judi Smolin contributes the cover's compelling depiction of the limber, nimble, petite mammal. Illustrator Jade Feng embellishes Cecília's lively text with the lush colors of the central Neotropics.

Her illustrations particularly favor the vivid greens of the airborne bromeliads with which olinguitos build arboreal nests and the tomato-sized wild figs that dominate olinguito diets of epiphytic nectar and tree-dwelling arthropods in central Colombia and Ecuador.

The writer holds reader interest with a retiring, thumb-sucking olinguito's emotionally-arced, patient observations and prescient reactions to cloud-forest wildlife scoffing Tomás the Galápagos Island tortoise's (Chelonoidis nigra) storytelling hours.

Excepting Tomás, Cecília's cast of wildlife characters comprises the residents of the Western Andes Mountains in northern South America. The Andes constitutes the world's longest mountain range. Cecília's characters inhabit western slopes included within the Ecuadorian provinces of Cotopaxi and Pichincha.

Like all olinguito young, Cecília's protagonist is an only kit of a yearly litter. Olinguitos live year-round in the cloud-, fog- and mist-encased canopies 32 feet (10 meters) up from the root flares of gnarled, stout trees, at elevations 5,000-9,000 feet (1,524-2,743 meters) above sea level. They realize 1-foot (0.3-meter) jumps between branches during nightly foraging and socializing. They showcase limbs with reversible ankles and paws with padded soles and sharp claws for descending trunks, head-first and squirrel-like, even though they are not known to leave the treetops.

It is from these heights that Cecília's olinguito becomes entranced with Tomás the terrestrially-bound turtle. The non-talking, real-life equivalent of Tomás is Cecília's 150-plus-year-old pet Galápagos Island tortoise. Cecília indeed maintains solid understanding of environmental concerns and mammalian behavior through:

• Domesticating 13 animals, including the alpacas (Vicugna pacos) Khipus and Tupac;
• Getting her M.S.Ed. from the University of Southern California;
• Knowing four languages;
• Visiting 60 countries.

Cloud-forest amphibians, bats, beetles, monkeys and raptors believe the centenarian incapable of defeating a wild seal-tormenting pirate. They likewise belittle stories about longnose stubfoot toads (Atelopus longirostris) and Pinta Island tortoises (Chelonoidis nigra abingdonii). But Olinguito deduces that Tomás memorializes wildlife threatened or vanquished by agro-industrial-induced habitat destruction and climate change-provoked fungal and viral diseases.

Cecília's olinguito evinces the ever-loving youthfulness of the wiki-libraries we become in respecting wildland-urban interfaces. Olinguito expects to mature into a 14-inch (355-millimeter) bodied, 13- to 17-inch (330- to 431-millimeter) tailed, 2-pound (0.9-kilogram) black-and-gold-tipped, red-brown furball.

Cecília's book inspires readers of all ages to protect the world of 2013's news-breaking discovery: the olinguito.

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

olinguito (Bassaricyon neblina ruber) in favored habitat: up a fig (Ficus ssp.) tree
detail from "Illustrations of the species of Bassaricyon" by Nancy Halliday
K.M. Helgen et al, "Taxonomic Revision of the Olingos," ZooKeys, issue 324 (Aug. 15,2013), Figure 3, p. 17
Nancy Halliday, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons: Nancy Halliday, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Illustrations_of_the_species_of_Bassaricyon_-_ZooKeys-324-001-g003.jpg

Lonesome George, the last Pinta Island tortoise (Chelonoidis nigra abingdonii), is remembered by Tomás, a Galapagos tortoise (Chelonoidis nigra), in "Olinguito Speaks Up," a children's story by Cecilia Velástegui.
Puerto Ayora, Galapagos, Ecuador: Anamnesius, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/i_look/4688686179/

As New World natives, olinguitos (Bassaricyon neblina) favor cloud forests.
cloud forest near Mindo, Pichincha province, northwestern Ecuador: Dallas Krentzel, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/31867959@N04/6012346314/

"Olinguito Speaks Up - Book Trailer (English)" (1:23)
Uploaded December 16, 2013, by Cecilia Velástegui to YouTube ~ URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0KZ6NuK0VQ

olinguito, northwestern Costa Rican town of Monteverde
The scenic town's Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve (la Reserva Forestal de Monteverde) is recognized by National Geographic as "the jewel in the crown of cloud forest reserves."
photo by Greg Basco; K.M. Helgen et al, "Taxonomic Revision of the Olingos," ZooKeys, issue 324 (Aug. 15,2013), Figure 20, page 41: ZooKeys, CC BY 4.0, via Pensoft Publishers @  https://zookeys.pensoft.net/articles.php?id=3550; (specific image URL @ https://zookeys.pensoft.net/showimg/oo_26206.jpg)

olinguito (Bassaricyon neblina) at Tandayapa Bird Lodge, northwestern Ecuador
extracted from triptych, "The Olinguito, Bassaricyon neblina neblina, in life, in the wild," by Mark Gurney
K.M. Helgen et al, "Taxonomic Revision of the Olingos," ZooKeys, issue 324 (Aug. 15,2013), Figure 13, page 29: Mark Gurney, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Olinguito_ZooKeys_324,_solo_(2).JPG

Helgen, K. M., M. Pinto, R. Kays, L. Helgen, M. Tsuchiya, A. Quinn, D. Wilson, J. Maldonado. (15 August 2013). "Taxonomic Revision of the Olingos (Bassaricyon), with Description of a New Species, the Olinguito." ZooKeys 324:1-83. Retrieved on January 4, 2014.  DOI:10.3897/zookeys.324.5827

• Available via National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3760134/
• Available via Pensoft Publishers/ZooKeys @ https://zookeys.pensoft.net/articles.php?id=3550

Velástegui, C. (2013). Olinguito Speaks Up / Olinguito alta la voz. Libros Publishing LLC. Monarch Beach, California.