About Brooke
Author & Illustrator
Brooke’s first book, Look Who Lives in the Desert! is an Accelerated Reader™. It received the Glyph Award for “Best Children’s Nonfiction” and was selected a Southwest Books of the Year “Top Pick for Kids” and the Phoenix Public Library Project GOAL book for 2004-2005.
Her second title, Zachary Z. Packrat and His Amazing Collections (illustrated by nationally syndicated cartoonist Jenny Campbell) offers romping wordplay about a packrat who collects too much stuff. The title was nominated for a 2011 Grand Canyon Reader Award. It was also selected the 2008-2009 Phoenix Public Library Project GOAL Book.
In 2009, Look Who Lives in the Ocean!, was released with 21 of the splashiest marine animals. This sequel to LWLD is sold in major aquariums across the U.S. and is already making waves as a powerful school resource.
Exhibits of Brooke’s writing, artwork and creative processes have been displayed at several large city libraries, including Phoenix Burton Barr, Scottsdale Civic Center Library, Denver Public Library, and the Las Vegas Sahara West Library. Brooke is a member of SCBWI and the International Reading Association. She is currently working on several new manuscripts.
Naturalist
Brooke has been an animal enthusiast all her life. She has shared the water with a wild dolphin in the British West Indies, schools of sharks in Tahiti and humpback whales in Maui. She has taken safari in East Africa, explored the Galapagos Islands, worked with sea turtles in Costa Rica, and camped in the mountains of Baja, Mexico to assist the reintroduction effort for California condors.
As a child, her interest in dogs and cats grew to wolves and lions... then quickly expanded to every other species. Her professional careeer began at age 19, running an animal rescue organization in the Phoenix area and working in a small animal hospital. Later, living in California, Brooke became involved in the rescue and rehabilitation of seals and sea lions and studied marine mammal behavior at Sea World. She continues to serve as a wildlife rescue volunteer in Arizona, assisting sick, injured and orphaned animals native to the desert.
Brooke is a certified veterinary technician and a member of several related professional associations. She worked as a vet tech/keeper on the medical team at the Phoenix Zoo, concurrently appearing on local and national television with animals as the zoo’s on-camera naturalist. There she gained hands-on experience with hundreds of species—mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and invertebrates.
She still does occasional relief work at the zoo hospital but nowadays Brooke's wildlife work is mainly conservation research, done in the field where she can directly connect with nature. Her most recent project was a two-month marine sighting survey in Golfo Dulce, a remote Costa Rican embayment, documenting whales, dolphins and sea turtles among other species.
Educator
From school visits to lectures to workshops, Brooke is a versatile and enthusiastic speaker. She schedules author-illustrator visits at schools, including presentations for k-8, student writing workshops, literacy night events and author-in-residence programs. She also offers in-service for primary grade teachers, using her original book-based curriculum to help teachers meet educational standards in language arts and science. She has given professional development workshops for many organizations, including the International Reading Association.
For adult writers, she has given many wordplay workshops and occasionally teaches an 8-week program The ABCs of Writing for the Children’s Market for ASU’s Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing.
Freelance Writer
Brooke has contributed essays to newspapers, magazine and websites and her writing credits include a monthly humor column and scholarly works in the field of conservation science.
Television Producer
An award-winning television producer, Brooke has over 20 years experience in the industry both on and off camera. She created a children’s show, Cool Critters, wrote zoo segments and hosted KNXV’s Emmy-winning children’s series What’s Up? and produced KTVK’s top-rated weekly program, A Brighter Day with Jan D’Atri, as well as stories for cable networks, including National Geographic Channel, Style Network and Discovery.
Other Stuff
Brooke grew up in Colorado. She is married and lives in Arizona with her husband, Kevin and their dogs, Malki and Hollister. She and Kevin are both licensed pilots; together they built and, for seven years, flew their own 4-place Velocity LWFG airplane.