Chickens Aren't the Only Ones

Ruth Heller (1923-2004) received a fine arts degree from the University of California at Berkeley and completed two years of graduate work in design at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. She began her career designing wrapping paper, cocktail napkins, greeting cards, and coloring books.

After five years of rejection and one complete revision, Heller’s first book, Chickens Aren’t the Only Ones, about egg-laying animals, was published in 1981. Its success led to the quick publication of a sequel, Animals Born Alive And Well (1982), about mammals. In 1983 and 1984, her third and fourth titles, The Reason For A Flower (about plants that have seeds and flowers) and Plants That Never Ever Bloom (about plants that do not), were published.

She then began work on a collection of six books, the How To Hide series, on camouflage and its natural phenomena, covering the entire animal kingdom: insects, birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, and sea creatures. Her next collection was a five-volume series on parts of speech: A Cache of Jewels and Other Collective Nouns; Kites Sail High: A Book About Verbs; Many Luscious Lollipops: A Book About Adjectives; Merry-Go-Round: A Book About Nouns; and Up, Up and Away: A Book About Adverbs.

Heller also wrote and illustrated Color, a guide to the four-color printing process.

Notable figures who influenced Heller’s writing include Ogden Nash, Gilbert and Sullivan, Edward Lear, Hilaire Belloc, and Dr. Seuss. Heller described her work as “nonfiction picture books in rhyme,” stating, “I find writing in rhyme enjoyable and challenging, and I think it is an easy way for children to learn new facts and acquire a sophisticated vocabulary. Children are not intimidated by big words. I try to make my writing succinct and allow the illustrations to convey as much information as possible.”

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