by Kari Percival
Chronicle Books, 2025
Every year, on the first warm, rainy nights of spring, salamanders and frogs migrate en masse to vernal pools and other wetlands in a phenomenon known as Big Night. On any given migration night, tens of thousands of amphibians might be afoot, marching and leaping and clambering toward spring. After a long, cold winter, this exuberant profusion of life feels a lot like magic, so it’s not surprising that Big Night has given rise to an entire subgenre of children’s picture books. Safe Crossing, written and illustrated by Boston-based artist and science educator Kari Percival, stands out for its beauty, accuracy, and vision.
Artful and welcoming, Safe Crossing follows a family as they venture “down to the crossing place: a wet road on a wet night in spring.” Here, as in many places, a road has been built between woods and wetlands, and amphibians must cross it to reach their breeding pools. Although the road is closed to through-traffic on Big Nights, some cars still pass by. The family is careful to step aside, but they watch with worry as oncoming headlights illuminate wood frogs, spotted salamanders, and spring peepers.
Like many volunteers who have spent their spring nights shuttling salamanders across the road, the children wonder, “Why did people have to build a road here?” What about “the times… when we aren’t here to help them?” And, more important, how can we ensure that all the amphibians make it across?
The young narrator then embarks on a mission to get wildlife tunnels installed so the salamanders can travel safely under the road, whether humans are there to help or not.
For a children’s book, it’s a surprisingly accurate portrayal of a conservation project – complete with applying for grants, working with a herpetologist and an engineer to design the tunnels and guide walls, acquiring permits in partnership with the local conservation commission, and seeking approval from the town council.
Another spring passes, and more volunteers join the Amphibian Migration Team, “counting how many cross [and] how many don’t make it in time.” Eventually, the town raises the money they need, the tunnels get built, and the family looks on as the salamanders “come out the other side to freedom.”
Through it all, safety – for both humans and amphibians – takes center stage. Modeling best practices, every volunteer wears a headlamp and high-visibility vest, and washes their hands in rainwater before using wet leaves to carry amphibians across the road.
All this talk of reflective vests and engineering plans might suggest that this book would be, well, boring for kids, but nothing could be farther from the truth. The prose is warm and inviting, and the illustrations – rendered in bold purples and golds reminiscent of a spotted salamander’s skin, and in Percival’s woodcut-inspired style – are absolutely striking.
The book is recommended for ages 5 to 8. Younger children will enjoy the search-and-find vernal pool drawings on the endpapers: newly laid wood frog eggs at the front, hatching tadpoles on the back. Older kids can dig deeper with additional sections featuring fun facts about amphibians and tips on how to become a community scientist. There’s also an illustrated glossary with fun words like “spermatophore” and “pollywog.”
Rather than focusing solely on the magic of the migration, the ephemeral beauty of vernal pools, or the work of bucket brigades – as with other Big Night picture books – Percival takes it a step farther, emphasizing long-term conservation outcomes. Safe Crossing thus highlights the power of community science – both in generating data that can be used to inform lasting solutions such as tunnels and in garnering community support (and yes, funding) to implement them.
In the real world, salamander tunnels are still uncommon, but Percival’s story of a town coming together to protect migrating amphibians offers a hopeful road map – for families, for communities, and for anyone who’s ever spent time on a wet road on a wet night in spring.