Virtual-Environmental Bk Club: "Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creature

Wednesday, December 2, 2026 6:30—7:30 PM Online - Zoom **PLEASE NOTE THIS IS A VIRTUAL PROGRAM THAT WILL TAKE PLACE VIA ZOOM. Registration is required.** Please join us for the Environmental Book Club. This month we'll be discussing the book "Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures" by Katherine Rundell. Please register for this event. Once you register you will receive the confirmation and reminder emails. Synopsis: Rundell's latest (after the middle-grade fantasy Impossible Creatures, 2024) is a gem of a book, a bestiary of animals that are slowly disappearing due to habitat loss and climate change. She covers everything from the raccoon, crow, and spider to the Greenland Shark, the narwhal, the golden mole, and finally, the human. Each entry is full of descriptions of each animal's remarkable features and fun facts (the wombat can outrun Usain Bolt, young swift chicks prepare for flight by doing "feathery push-ups" in the nest) as well as historic human encounters (a girl whose crow friends brought her gifts, Pliny the Elder's adorable assumptions about how hedgehogs collect food). Rundell's wit fascinates and cuts as she describes characteristics of these fascinating creatures (on the coconut hermit crab, "too large to fit in a bathtub, exactly the right size for a nightmare") and chides humans for their threatening behavior (she sarcastically encourages giraffe-skin collecting, "if you felt like externalizing the apocalyptic whiff of your personality"). This magical collection of very real animals will charm and inspire readers. As Rundell says in her introduction, "The time to fight, with all our ingenuity and tenacity, and love and fury, is now." Please register to receive the Zoom link. Check your spam folder if you don't see it in your inbox. If you have any questions, you can contact us at ashlandprograms@minlib.net We are pleased to be partnering with Ashland Sustainability and GreenUp Ashland for this program. We'll have copies of the book at the library for you to borrow or you can order it from our online catalog. Sign up for ourAshland Public Library Newsletters! Return to Main Calendar This program is sponsored by the Friends of the Ashland Public Library. Sign up for our Ashland Public Library Newsletters! Return to main calendar Register online between 1/1/2026 9:00 AM and 12/2/2026 7:00 PM.