In his ninth children's book, photographer and author Richard Sobol takes readers through central Africa to meet an endangered, and beloved, species in Breakfast in the Rainforest: A Visit with Mountain Gorillas (Candlewick, 2008). Sobol explains his hope that children learn not just about these animals, but also about the relationship with the people who live near the gorillas' home in Uganda's Bwindi National Park. What attracted you to writing about mountain gorillas? I had been to Uganda before, it was a place where I was planning to return to, and I was specifically looking for a wildlife story. Uganda was a place where I enjoyed working, and the grandest of species of mountain gorillas is there. What do you hope children learn about gorillas that they may not from another book? I wanted them to get a sense of what it's like in another part of the world. And one thing I particularly explored in this book is that these populations of gorillas—and most populations of wildlife—don't live in isolation. Even if they're protected, and in special wildlife parks, they have a special relationship with the people around them. There's an awful lot of Africa wildlife stories that isolate wildlife and don't highlight what the sacrifices are, as well as the rewards that they get. They often show, particularly those television documentaries, none of the indigenous people who come to work with these animals. And I kind of take issue with that. Indigenous people in the natural world and in neighboring villages are important and are real heroes. And that's one of the themes that I was happy to explore. How did you cross over from photographer to children's book author? I branched out from being just a photographer and photojournalist to adding writing so I could have more control over the product. I started doing practice writing and telling stories and grew more confident. Then I happened to be on a story about seals in Canada, with writer Farley Mowat—the grand wildlife and outdoor writer who wrote Never Cry Wolf (Little, Brown, 1963). He's one of my favorite writers about wildlife. I told him I was struggling with adding writing to my photographs, that I was not sure I could do it. And he said, "I just had dinner with you, and you told me these most amazing stories and all you have to do it is write them down." He kind of gave me the green light that I hadn't allowed myself to have. And I started adding writing at that time. Also, I had kids of my own and that was what I was reading: books for children. And I was specifically thinking where the crossovers were that interested me, along with opportunities for stories that hadn 't been told for children. In this book you add yourself as a character. How did that choice come about? I was telling stories to editors at Candlewick what it was like for me, and what I was encountering, and they suggested that I put myself into it, and they said children would respond to it. This gorilla book is the most personal of the ones I've done and the style I will continue to do. And I'm working on three more titles in this traveling photographer series. As I bring myself to schools and talk to school groups, it's much more exciting to add myself as a character to the presentations and the story and not just be the expert about wildlife and conservation, which I'm not. I'm a quick study on gorillas while I write the book, and then a whale expert when I wrote the whale books. But when I talk about my experience as a photojournalist, how I keep my gear together, how I deal with being alone—which is something that comes out and is new in this series—I don't have to study for that. Do you ever go back and follow up on the places and people who have featured in your books? I have not gone back to the mountain gorillas, but I have been back to Uganda, East Africa, Thailand, and to Mexico after Adelina's Whales (Dutton Juvenile, 2003) was published. The places that I have visited in the past have become very dear to me, particularly Africa and Southeast Asia, where I based stories and have several new stories. But I'm not exploring the planet. I'm happy to have found a few places where I can go a little deeper. I don't have a need to go everywhere. I mean, I have been to a lot of places over the years. There were times when I traveled well over 100,000 miles a year. I'm not quite as aggressive now. Traveling is much harder, and much less predictable. A few years ago, I wouldn't even think twice about going to Africa, come home for two weeks, turn around and then go back. But now, airports are nasty, traveling with equipment is nasty. All the factors have made it much more challenging. Once I get somewhere it's fun again, but getting there is much more challenging. I'm actually looking for a couple of domestic stories over the next 18 months. Did you imagine you'd spend a life crossing the globe as a storyteller? I never knew the books would become such an important part of what I did. I always envisioned myself telling stories, and I have been pretty good at reinventing myself at various times in my career. I came from an editorial photojournalist background—and spent a long time working on political stories for news magazines. Just by good fortune, I fell into an opportunity to do wildlife stories for an international wildlife group and that gave me access, along with the foundation, to tell stories about conservation. I just sort of rolled with that. And that took me a little bit away from chasing presidential candidates. I watch that safely now from my couch.