Rebecca Cummins grew up exploring the state parks and caves of southern Indiana and the farm fields and muddy creeks of central Illinois. She learned many native species of the Midwest through the influence and guidance of her father, mother, uncle, and aunt. Later, she studied to be a teacher at Eastern Illinois University, to be a principal at Western Illinois University, and to be a writer at the Bread Loaf School of English, Middlebury College, in Vermont. Migrating from the flat heartlands to the mountains of Vermont, she now lives along a precious mountain brook, where Jimi (with the wisdom of a child) comes to teach her how to think about unfamiliar, challenging, and sometimes scary, environments-in society as well as in nature.