"Riley" kids' books explore the world

They're both pretty good kids — redheaded Riley, 9, and his darker-haired cousin, 10-year-old Alice.

True, he's a little naive, and she gets them into one predicament after another. But by hanging out with them, we can learn some pretty cool stuff, such as:

• Tarantulas can be as big across as a dinner plate and live up to 30 years

• Jaguars are the largest cats in the Americas, and they can swim

• More than 3,000 species of fish live in the Amazon River, and most of them don't live anywhere else on Earth

Those facts are from "Adventures of Riley: Amazon River Rescue," a new children's book published by a Kirkland couple, Amanda Lumry, 27, and Loren Wengerd, 28.

This is the third book in what the couple plans as a 15-installment series taking Riley and Alice around the globe to learn about exotic animals, their habitats and the areas' human occupants as well.

"Alice knows just enough to be dangerous and the misadventures occur when Riley tags along, because he's not going to be left out," Wengerd said.

The colorful Riley books are built around graphics that combine photographs, many of them shot by Lumry, with cartoon-style illustrations to capture young readers' eyes and imagination.

The formula has drawn acclaim. Their prototype for the series, "Alistar on Safari," won the Publishers Marketing Association's 2002 Benjamin Franklin Award in the "Children's Picture Book" category.

Just as Riley and Alice bring differing traits to the adventures, Lumry and Wengerd bring complementary interests to the enterprise. He spends more time on the business and production end; she's more involved with the story line and character development, working with a writer, Laura Hurwitz, and illustrator, Sarah McIntyre.

Both, however, started with a love of photography.

"I was always known as the girl with the camera," said Lumry, a Bellevue native. She was in second grade when her parents gave her a point-and-shoot camera, and she still has the negatives of the first roll she shot, showing friends on the playground at Bellevue Christian School.

Wengerd, who grew up in Ohio's Amish country, where his family ran an exotic-animal farm and petting zoo, collected enough labels from cereal boxes to get his first camera at age 7.

Lumry's appreciation for the environment and diverse cultures stems from travels as a child with her family to Europe, Egypt, Indonesia, India and China. When Lumry was 12, she was in Beijing's Tiananmen Square in the early days of the 1989 demonstration that ended with communist troops killing hundreds of pro-democracy demonstrators.

"That really solidified for me that the U.S. is just a small part of the globe," she said. "It really propelled me to want to do something with my life."

She earned a bachelor's degree in visual communication from Harvard in 1999; Wengerd completed a music degree at Yale in 2001.

While still in college, Lumry used a grant to form Vista Press (now Eaglemont Press) and publish her first book, "Nantucket Borders," in 1998. She followed that with a book done as her senior thesis, "MalaMala: Pathway of an African Eden" ($45), in 1999

Later Eaglemont Press books, including photos by Lumry and Wengerd, have been "Cayman: A Photographic Journey Through the Islands" ($45) in 2000 and "Holmespun: An Intimate Portrait of an Amish and Mennonite Community" ($45) in 2002.

Last year, Lumry and Wengerd collaborated on yet another kind of project: a blond, blue-eyed baby girl, Chloe, born in December.

Chloe has already traveled to Alaska, flown on a float plane, ridden in a backpack and seen a grizzly bear and her cubs. "When we take her outside, she starts to chatter," her father said. "And if you take her out and there's a sunset, she loves it. She's enthralled."

Notes Lumry, "She's very conscious of the world around her, which is great. Maybe she will take up photography."

Jack Broom: 206-464-2222 or jbroom@seattletimes.com