Cooped up inside my house as nearly 30 inches of snow piled high outside my window and in need of a distraction, I began sifting through boxes of childhood keepsakes. And in a stack of my favorite books, I found one that brought back  my earliest memories of the Chesapeake Bay.

Alongside the usual classics, such as Curious George and Winnie the Pooh, sat Chadwick the Crab by Priscilla Cummings. A series four picture books, illustrated by A.R. Cohen, follow the blue crab, Chadwick, and his life in the Chesapeake. Chadwick and his friends, other animals native to the Bay, opened their home up to me in a way I had never before experienced. I knew the Chesapeake as a place for fun – boating, swimming, splashing around. But I did not understand its larger importance to our area, environmentally and culturally, until Chadwick.

I read, enraptured, as the charismatic crab fought the “garplegrungen” (pollution) threatening the Bay, and later campaigned to save his endangered friend Hester, the Delmarva fox squirrel. Along the way, I learned my first lessons about the Bay’s fragile health and the push for conservation. All this came flooding back as I flipped through the aging pages.

Chadwick, since his first book came out in 1986, has brought the Chesapeake to life for thousands of children, and, at least for me, cemented a lifelong relationship with the Bay. In recognition of this, the Association for Childhood Education International named Annapolis-based Cummings the Celebrated Maryland Author in 2001, citing her “outstanding contributions to the field of children’s literature and ecology.”

That’s high honors for one blue crab. Still, despite Chadwick’s valiant efforts, the Bay’s health is still in jeopardy – including its blue crab population. But we should take a page from Chadwick’s book and keep fighting, no matter the odds. And local literature can and should be a part of that battle. Books, as Chadwick the Crab shows, can connect readers, young and old, to the Chesapeake, and bring fresh awareness to conservation efforts. With the help of Chadwick and others, a whole new audience can help save the Bay.