Cranberry Twp. childhood inspires Calif. resident to write first book
A childhood spent in Cranberry Township has inspired a Oakland, Calif.-based author to write his first children’s book.
Shane Downing, writing under the pen name of Collin Pine, said his book, “The Garden Next Door,” is currently being printed and will be released Oct. 4. People can pre-order the book at Barnes & Noble, Amazon and Target.
Downing, the son of Dale and Patti Downing and a 2007 graduate of Seneca Valley High School, said the book, written for first- and second-graders, was inspired by Downing’s love of gardening.
“The idea came out of our backyard in Oakland. The backyard was completely grass. Most of our neighbors had mostly grass. We put in raised beds and intentionally set about getting plants native to California,” said Downing.
“Some of the native plants that my husband and I planted in our Oakland backyard were: Pacific wax myrtle, toyon (Hollywood), California meadow sedge, California poppies, Cleveland sage, California goldenrod, California fuschia, California buckwheat, silver bush lupine, California lilac and manzanita,” he said. “We also have raised beds for our vegetables and herbs.
“California is so different from Cranberry, and some of my favorite natives from my childhood include wild bergamot, prairie blazing stars and cardinal flower (which are all featured in ‘The Garden Next Door’). I also love Ohio buckeyes, the tree, not the team,“ he said.
Downing’s book follows three bored children who are determined to figure out why birds, bees and butterflies zoom past them, over their fence and into their neighbor’s yard. In the end, the children discover the power of pollinator gardens, and they convince their parents to make some changes to bring a little nature to their sod-covered backyard. The takeaway? A tiny pollinator patch can make a big difference, especially when it comes to attracting cool wildlife.
The book’s message is especially relevant now, Downing said. It was that just a couple of weeks ago that the International Union for Conservation of Nature added the migratory monarch butterfly to its Red List of Threatened Species.
“That's alarming, but it's also an opportunity for people to get involved. In addition to cutting pesticide use, one way that individuals can help monarchs is to plant patches of native milkweeds (butterfly weed, common milkweed, whorled milkweed and swamp milkweed in Butler County) and other flowers that monarchs love. If enough people rethink their landscape practices, it can do a lot to help these populations rebound,” he said.
Downing said his words greatly benefited from the work of the book’s illustrator, Tiffany Everett.
“The illustrations complement the text. When reading this book to a child, if there is too much text, he gets bored. He’s seen the picture, he wants to move on,” he said.
Downing said his publisher suggested he use a pen name for “The Garden Next Door,” to keep his real name for use if he ever decided to write an adult novel.
He is the son of Dale and Patti Downing and was raised on the border between Cranberry Township and Evans City.
“As my bio on the book jacket says, my ‘passion for gardening is rooted in western Pennsylvania ... where [my] childhood summers were spent putting tomatoes into colanders and raspberries directly into [my] mouth,” he said.
He credits a biology teacher at Seneca Valley, Rebecca Finch, with spurring his interest in the natural world. After graduating from Seneca Valley High School in 2007, he attended Allegheny College in Meadville. “They have a beautiful environmental science program up there,” he said.
“I love him. He was such a good kid,” said Finch. “He was in advanced biology when I had him here.”
“I just got reconnected with him” on social media, said Finch, who now teaches anatomy and molecular biology at Seneca Valley High School.
“We share similar philosophies,” said Finch. “We do not mow our back yard, and put native plants in our house. I always talked about that, and I wondered ‘Are any of these kids event listening?’”
Following graduation from college, Downing spent 27 months in the Peace Corps in the African nation of Cameroon. “That was an amazing experience for a 22-year-old to be full immersed in a different country and culture, facing extreme highs and lows. It was a very informative experience for me,” he said.
However, being immersed in a Pennsylvania winter when he returned to the United States in 2013 after more than two years in Africa sent Downing to San Francisco, where he worked as a journalist and now as a freelance writer, while working to complete his degree to teach English to speakers of other languages.
Downing said Pittsburgh’s Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens is going to include his book in future story time readings at the gardens, and the book also will be available for purchase on its website, and at its store later this fall.
Finch said, “I’m going to buy copies of his book and put them in every elementary library in the district.”
