Ike

Ron McAdow has made films and books for children and has worked to build care for the natural world, as a writer, artist, and filmmaker, and photographer. In the 1970s Ron made animated films for children's television programs, and two longer films, Hank the Cave Peanut and Captain Silas, which are in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Captain Silas received the gold medal for animation at the Virgin Islands Film Festival. After filmmaking, Ron worked as a teacher and camp director, in outdoor and Montessori settings and did multimedia instructional design for educational publishing at D.C. Heath and CAST. He authored The Concord, Sudbury, and Assabet Rivers: A Guide to Canoeing, Wildlife, and History, and The Charles River: Exploring Nature and History on Foot and by Canoe. Ron published his first novel, Ike, in 2015, and his second, The Grove of Hollow Trees, in 2020. His books for children include How Dragons Got Senses and, to be released in 2021, The Thunderstorm and Other Songs for Children. Ron was born in Alton, Illinois, in 1949. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago. He lives on Farrar Pond in Lincoln with his wife, Betsy Stokey. During their nature-centered travels Ron practices his hobby of photography.