When Steve Swinburne suggested this book, I knew very little about armadillos, except that they lived in the southern United States, had a hard shell, and were one of few animals, outside of humans, that can catch leprosy. The locations of the book, the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles were also unfamiliar territory to me.
The first job of a nature illustrator is be accurate, and so I set off for Oklahoma hoping to see lots of armadillos and the landscape where they lived. In 10 days of travel by car, I did see a number of armadillos, but they were all roadkill along the highways. Armadillos with crushed shells are not pretty so I will not include any pictures here. I did study the land with both photos and sketches. It is primarily flat or gently rolling, with big skies and lots of farms where corn and wheat are grown.

The towns are small and have huge grain elevators where the grain is stored prior to shipping.

The rivers which the armadillo in the book follows are primarily dry when I was there in early September.

And I did see places that looked as if they could have been part of the set for the famous musical Oklahoma.

I drove around every night hoping to see a live armadillo without success. After a while it occurred to me that it would be like looking for live porcupines in the Adirondacks. Sure, you can see a lot of roadkilled animals, but to spot a live porcupine is pretty rare.

Steve suggested that I go to Cumberland Island, where he was once a ranger/naturalist. This is an island just off the coast of Georgia, and very close to the Florida border. There I walked for an hour or so, when I heard something rummaging about in the dry leaves. It was indeed an armadillo. They are quite unconcerned with your presence, so I could get very close for pictures as it snooted in the leaves for insects and grubs.

Photos are an immense help for an illustrator, so I took a lot of them. Here is a close up of the armadillo's head.

With that, I had enough information to begin illustrating the book. I hope you enjoy it.

Bruce

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