• Reading age: 9 to 12

Canadian Children's Book Centre Our Choice, 2007

Narrated by the Calgary Zoo's world-renowned nature devotee and conservationist Brian Keating, nine wonderful true tales of incredible desert wildlife adaptations and inconceivable feats of desert survival unfold on the pages of this book.

Amazing Animal Adventures in the Desert is the third of eight exciting volumes in the groundbreaking Going Wild series, written for children to encourage them to explore the natural world around them.

Keating's high-energy enthusiasm for the wonders of nature is contagious, inspiring children to discover, through his eyes, how animals, people, and plants have evolved unique strategies for surviving in one of the world's harshest ecosystems—the desert. In the desert the days are unbearably hot, nights uncomfortably cold, and the air and ground impossibly dry.

Join Keating as he describes the:

• Landlocked river Delta in Africa's Kalahari Desert, where termites are responsible for building islands.
• Namib Desert's Oryx, the perfect desert creature, which can survive without drinking water.
• Maze of slot canyons and rock sculptures in the Utah desert, where flash floods were always on his mind.
• Baja peninsula's desert landscape and the friendly grey whales attracted to its lagoons.

• Transporting herds of female elephants to the Savé Conservancy in Zimbabwe, where one man successfully reclaimed the desert by reintroducing wildlife.

  Teacher's Guides are available at Fitzhenry.ca

Brian Keating is a keen naturalist, avid outdoorsman, world traveller, intrepid adventurer, and extraordinary spokesperson for the world's wild places and the creatures that inhabit them. Keating is Head of the Calgary Zoo's Conservation Outreach Department, and responsible for national and international conservation projects, such as the Wechiau Hippo Sanctuary in Ghana, West Africa, and the nature-based eco-tour program that he started in 1983.

Brian Keating's profile page