THE ENTIRE MANUSCRIPT MUST BE DOUBLE-SPACED
A Whale’s Tale
By Daniel S. Janik
Illustrated by Ruth R. Janik
Dedication
To whale lovers everywhere, young and old. -- Daniel and Ruth Janik
Forward
This story is about Pacific Humpback whales. While a fantasy, it nonetheless contains interesting information about these whales that migrate on a roughly yearly basis from Hawaii to Alaska and back. If you are interested in humpback whales...
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 - Twenty Feet Under
Chapter 2 - The Big Top
Chapter 3 - The Great Beyond...
Chapter 1 - Twenty Feet Under
The tropical sky blushed every imaginable hue of blue. Gentle crystalline waves reached up to the sky like a playful pack of ponies running towards land, their silvery manes fluttering in the gentle trade winds. Brilliant sunlight splashed along as if on a golden waterfall happily emptying into an azure sea.
Sorry, little one, I don’t know if it was a school day or the weekend because, well, almost every day in Hawaii is paradise. But this was not just any other another day, because, you see, I had just finished my afternoon nap, and opened my eyes, twenty feet under water.
Twenty feet under water! That's impossible, you say! Have you already forgotten that I am a whale, and the deep blue sea is my natural home -- just as everything above the water including the crisp, fresh air, is your natural home! So now that we both, once again, know who we are, let’s continue, okay?
It seems to me that just before my nap, you said you wanted to hear a story -- a whale story. Now, as I am a whale, no one should know a good whale story better than I. So here is one of my favorites, the one about two humpback whales. This is not only their story, but the one I most enjoy singing about when traveling in early spring from Hawaii to Alaska and back again to Hawaii in early autumn. But wait a second, I'm getting ahead of myself!
My story begins many, many years ago in the warm waters just off the island of Maui. We whales, as you know, like to tell our stories as songs, so if you want, you can hum or sing along with me. You see, this particular story begins with a birth of a baby whale.
Chapter 2 - The Big Top
I think being born must be somewhat different for whales than people. You see, when we whales are born, we simply leave the small sea inside our mother for a bigger one on the outside. We don't cry, because, for us, it’s a change we eagerly look forward to, just as you might look forward to going for a walk in a new park, or shopping at a new toy store. On the other hand, there is one really big challenge for us; that’s when we move from the small sea inside our mother to the bigger sea surrounding her. Just like you, from the moment we are born, we must breathe air, and unlike most other sea animals who get their air right from the water, we whales, like you, cannot. So, at least, at first, breathing is not so easy...
About the Author
Daniel S. Janik is a physician-educator-linguist-writer with over seventy published works across numerous genre under a variety of pen names. He is the recipient of a New Millenium Writer's Award, two Eric Hoffer Awards, three Neurobiological Learning Society "Choice" book, a Hollywood Book Festival Award and numerous article awards. He is a 2007 Poet of the Year recipient.
NOTE: THE ENTIRE MANUSCRIPT MUST BE DOUBLE-SPACED