PLATTSBURGH — Fuzzy mammals, chirping birds and other hallmarks of children's books are absent in "Adventures of Captain Fishhook Waterflea: the Invasion of Lake Champlain."
Its creators want to get the word out about plankton.
"The only well-known plankton out there is Plankton from Spongebob," said Casey Binggeli, the book's co-writer and a graduate student in natural sciences at Plattsburgh State. "Kids books mostly have large mammals — the vertebrates."
Binggeli, fellow student Carrianne Pershyn and Harvard University student Alexandra Mihalek were studying the plankton of Lake Champlain when the idea came to them.
"It started out as a joke," Pershyn said. "We were identifying plankton under microscopes and started giving them little names, which turned into an idea for a kid's book."
When they brought up the project to their professor Dr. Timothy Mihuc, he was impressed. They took it on as a side project independent of their daily research and grades.
"I said, 'All right, give me something in two weeks'," he said. "They truly went above and beyond."
PIRATE BATTLE
The students returned with drawings of cute, smiling plankton and a plot of a pirate battle going on under the waters of Lake Champlain.
"We're scientists, so trying to do something creative was a challenge," Binggeli said with a grin.
Both Binggeli and Pershyn were excited about the unexpected accomplishment of penning a children's story. The challenges ranged from writing text children could understand to navigating unfamiliar publishing software.
Inspired by the history of the Battle of Plattsburgh, the students wrote about the two sides in an imagined battle for the lake's food chain: native plankton, of which there are nearly 50 species, and invasive plankton from Europe.
"These invasive species have adapted so that the fish here cannot eat them. As a result, the niche native plankton occupied is taken over as they displace the native species," Mihuc said.
A REAL THREAT
In the book, these "pirate" plankton drop in on the native organisms from a passing motorboat — that lends itself to the moral of the story: People who do not wash their boats, fishing gear and even their pets when going from one body of water to another risk spreading the foreign plankton and disrupting the balance of the local ecosystem.
"With tiny microorganisms, it is hard for people to relate," said Mihuc.
Binggeli insists that the book is easy for children to understand, especially with the help of numerous fact boxes to help them through the more difficult terminology. Mihuc made sure around 50 copies were distributed to local elementary schools.
While invasive plankton have not yet made it into Lake Champlain, they occupy nearby bodies of water and Mihuc says the threat of invasion is real.
"Adventures of Captain Fishhook Waterflea: The Invasion of Lake Champlain" can be ordered online through Amazon or micro-publisher, Lulu. The books are sold at cost for $13.98.
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