LAKE TAHOE, Calif./Nev. – In a world of cartoons and extensive screen time, creators of a Tahoe-themed children’s coloring book are hoping the nature-filled pages spark connections to the outdoors.
The Animals Teach Lake Tahoe coloring book features real scenes around the Tahoe Basin, including Baldwin Beach, Zephyr Cove and Emerald Bay, along with wildlife such as bears, coyotes, osprey and many other regional characters.
“We hope that this book influences kids to be a bit more curious about nature, wildlife, and the world around them,” Raul Martinez said, who created the book with his partner Emily Olivet Bender.
Their passion comes from years of working with children at their dance studio in Miami and their own fondness for growing up in nature, Martinez from Cuba and Olivet Bender from the United Kingdom.
The Tahoe edition is the first in their new Animals Teach travel series of coloring books. The original Animals Teach coloring book series includes a first words, ABCs and numbers edition.
The duo’s first visit to Tahoe three summers ago inspired these coloring books after seeing children outdoors and active. It also influenced their decision to move to South Lake Tahoe in the summers to be closer to nature, themselves.
Seeing children so active outdoors contrasted with some of their own firsthand experiences with youth and general trends of children experiencing increasingly more screen time and less time in nature, resulting in a lack of fundamental awareness of things around them.
“They really don’t necessarily have an intellectual awareness of what things are [or] where things come from,” Martinez explained.
After doing research, the pair have come across data pointing to sensory starvation and found that a majority of kids’ neurological stress comes from a lack of interaction with nature.
“We really, truly feel that that is happening on a mass scale,” Martinez said. “Kids’ sensory development is being starved little by little, more and more every single day, and without the proper development of these senses, we’re just going to continue the pattern.”
The research the couple conducted massively shaped the vision for the coloring books, from the design, based on real locations and wildlife, to the concepts within.
“The primary intent of the book was to match the reality of everything around us, because the formula is that if the environment matches what the kid is learning, then the kid is actually having a behavioral and a visceral association to the external world,” Martinez said.
Not only do they hope these books begin to restore connections with nature, but they also hope it does so in a fun and inspiring way.
According to testimonies they’ve received so far, the Tahoe edition has enhanced children’s experience of the region, becoming a fun activity for kids to do in addition to visiting locations.
“Whether the activity is done previous to them visiting the location, or after the location, there’s a connection happening,” Olivet Bender said, explaining it becomes an activity that creates an emotional response.
Beyond coloring, the books teach numbers, letters, and first words through tracing, while also making associations to animals in natural scenery and environments.
“The animals will have a role to play to teach something about their environment,” Martinez explains. For example, in the Tahoe edition, an osprey dives, a salmon jumps, and coyotes run.
All the scenes and inspiration come from real locations they’ve visited and wildlife they’ve encountered.
The next planned coloring book in the Animals Teach travel series is a Morocco edition.
“What we hope is animals can teach a lot more than just what we’re putting in these books,” Olivet Bender said, like how to live in harmony with nature.
Animals Teach Lake Tahoe is available at locations around the lake, including:
- Fallen Leaf Campground – General Store
- Camp Richardson Store
- Cuppa Tahoe
- Edgewood Resort – Adventure Shop
- Tahoe City Kayak and Paddleboard
- Lake Tahoe Gifting Co
The book is also available online at laketahoe.animalsteachbooks.com.
