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This episode of Vermont Edition also included a conversation with ¿ªÔÆÌåÓý reporter Peter Hirschfeld about the legislative session's midway point.

To help explain complex issues and emotions to children, we adults often turn to books. Simple yet artful storytelling and evocative illustrations can illuminate the world for kids and bring them comfort, too.

South Burlington children's book author and illustrator Jason Chin uses paint and pen to bring the world around us to life. Chin won one of the highest honors in his field in 2022, when he was awarded the Caldecott Medal for Watercress, written by Andrea Wang. This year, he and the writer Lynn Brunelle won the Robert F. Silbert Medal for the most distinguished informational book for children for Life After Whale: The Amazing Ecosystem of a Whale Fall.

He joined Vermont Edition to discuss his upbringing in Lyme, New Hampshire, the inspiration behind his forthcoming book Hurricane, and why he thinks we should never talk down to children.

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For "Life After Whale," Chin researched the anatomy and skeletal structure of blue whales in order to draw them accurately.

Courtesy of Holiday House Publishing, Inc.

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The book shows how a whale carcass becomes its own ecosystem.

Courtesy of Holiday House Publishing, Inc.

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Hurricane was Chin's first time using both watercolors and pen and ink to illustrate a book.

Courtesy of Holiday House Publishing, Inc.

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He said he wanted to emphasize the importance of neighbors helping neighbors to prepare for and recover from tropical storms.

Courtesy of Holiday House Publishing, Inc.

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Courtesy of Holiday House Publishing, Inc. / “The efforts of the meteorological community often go underappreciated, but the work they do is becoming more and more important as the world warms," Chin wrote in the book's afterword, "and to my mind they are heroes."

Broadcast live on Wednesday, March 19, 2025, at noon; rebroadcast at 7 p.m.

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