Meet Jason Chin, REDWOODS Author and Illustrator: Part 2

The Green Guide for Kids: Your book Redwoods comes out today, congratulations!

Jason Chin: Thank you very much, and thank you again for the interview.

GGFK: What are some interesting facts about redwoods that you think kids would be surprised to hear?

JC: Well, the obvious fact is that they are the tallest trees in the world and most people know this already. But with a little context this fact becomes much more interesting: They aren't just the tallest trees, they are the tallest living things on the planet! And the tallest of them all, the tallest living thing on earth, is named Hyperion at 379.1 feet tall. How tall is that? That's 74 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty!

GGFK: In your book, you talk a lot about the redwood canopy, something that not many people know about. Can you talk a little about the canopy here?

JC: Of course. In fact, this was my favorite part of the research. The redwood canopy is a remarkable place. Redwood crowns are very big and very dense, so much so, that from the middle of them you cannot see the sky or the ground. And inside them, researchers have found a wide variety of other plants growing hundreds of feet above the earth. These including ferns, bushes and even other trees. In one instance, researchers found a new redwood taking root on the top of a fully grown redwood!

GGFK: In the book you talk about how important redwoods are to their ecosystem. Can you talk about some other species that depend on redwoods?

JC: A very good example of their connection to other species is the fact that they make their own rain. The summers on the northern California coast have very little rain, but a lot of fog. The fog condenses on the redwoods' needles and then drips to the ground. In this way it waters itself and all of the plants around it! Many of the plants on the forest floor depend on this artificial rainfall for their survival.