Bonnie Kelso: Hi, my name is Bonnie Kelso. I'm the author/illustrator of Nudi Gill: Poison Powerhouse of the Sea, an informational fiction picture book all about nudibranchs. I love nudibranchs. I've been obsessed with them for a long time, ever since I really started scuba diving. So, they're very small and they're kind of hard to find, but once you find them, you're just like, you fall in love with them because they're so brightly colored and they're so tiny and just really cute and they're just really interesting shapes and I just wanted to learn more and more about them, and I started drawing them and painting them.

And then later when I started getting into picture books, everyone always said, draw what you know, draw what you love. And I was like, hmm, okay. I got to do a book about nudibranchs.

The most fun part of creating this book was just drawing these underwater reefs and habitats and all the little critters and the bubbles and the textures and just all of it was just so much fun for me. I especially loved doing the final art phase where you add all the color and the textures and the details and the shading, and it was a lot of fun for me.

I guess I decided to just kind of focus on the biology and sort of the weird things about them. I figured the weirder, the more interesting it would be for kids to learn about. So, just basically pointing out the fact that they lose their shells when they're very tiny little villagers. And so making that relatable to kids by saying, "Oh, they're naked."

I think what I like most about creating this book was that I got to very subtly talk about ocean conservation. Just reminding people to be gentle when they're in the ocean and respectful of other creatures' habitat because you're basically a guest in their home, you know. We are not fish.

And just to remember that next time you go tromping along the coral reef.

The Nautilus is a living fossil. Its relatives existed before dinosaurs. The sea snail is part of the ocean's cleanup crew. Clams make delicious chowder.

" What? I'm a tiny miracle."

" I wish I could make a difference like you."

" You can. Tell people not to harm the reef. Down here everything lives in harmony."

Coral is a living animal too. It takes a whole year for many corals to grow one centimeter. And oils from human skin can damage them.