A full-color children's picture book with educational backmatter celebrating the abundance of salamanders in the Southern Appalachian region. This is a poem-length picture book (350 words) about salamanders as a group and specifically names all the different salamanders (more than 30 at last count) that can be found in Great Smoky Mountains National Park—but most are also found in the surrounding landscapes. From the monstrous hellbender to the tiny Pygmy salamander, the temperate rainforest provides an incredible habitat for herpetological wonders. Author Diane Lang brings her knowledge of animals to life alongside illustrations by Katy Tanis . A must-read for young readers who are interested in salamanders, snakes, lizards, and other amphibians. -- Diane Lang Diane Lang has been educating children and adults about the natural world for a quarter of a century throughout her home state of California, where she volunteers at a local nature center. As an author of six picture books about nature, she especially likes to share the fascinating characteristics of oft-overlooked wild neighbors, such as turkey vultures, snakes, and spiders. She shares her home with her husband, who is an origami artist, two dogs, a desert tortoise, a Kenyan sand boa, and a Nicaraguan Curly-Haired tarantula. See some her favorites critters and a few of her poems at  DianeLang.net . Diane resides in Pasadena, California. Katy Tanis lives at the Jersey Shore and shares her passion for ecology through books, puzzles, games, fabrics, art shows, and science workshops. She has traveled around the world to find lemurs in Madagascar’s spiny forest, “flying dragons” in Borneo’s tropical forests, and sea otters in California’s kelp forests. She has had her feet kissed by a sea lion in Peru, been pooped on by an orangutan in Borneo, and woken up with a tarantula in her bed in Nicaragua. Katy is the author and illustrator of the popular Love in the Wild series. Katy resides in Mantoloking, New Jersey.