I was born in the Bronx, and the Bronx is part of New York City, and, of course, it’s a very urban area. But even in the Bronx, there were many vacant lots, and the vacant lots were like jungles for tiny animals the insects that live there, the plants and the weeds and the cats that would prowl all around the the vacant lot. And when I was older, I wrote a book called Science in a Vacant Lot, which sort of told about those things that one can explore very close to home.
Many of the books I write are about far, distant places about the galaxy, stars and the universe; and even far, distant places on Earth, like the mountains of the Himalayas. But many of the books are also about things which are right next door, so, for example, I’ve written books about dogs and books about cats. I’ve written books about all the little animals that you can keep in a jar, called Pets in a Jar. I’ve also written books about observational astronomy, because when I was a kid, I was president of the Junior Astronomy Club at the American Museum of Natural History. And at that time, we had 900 members all across the country. We used to have observation meetings in Central Park, where a group of about a hundred of us would walk in, escorted by a policeman, to make sure that we were safe.
