Mary Batten is an award-winning writer for television, film and publishing. Her many writing projects have taken her into tropical rainforests, astronomical observatories, scientif...view moreMary Batten is an award-winning writer for television, film and publishing. Her many writing projects have taken her into tropical rainforests, astronomical observatories, scientific laboratories, and medical research centers.
She is the author of Baby Orca (Penguin, scheduled for release spring 2016), Please Don’t Wake the Animals: A Book About Sleep (Peachtree 2008); Who Has a Belly Button? (Peachtree 2004); Aliens from Earth: When Animals and Plants Invade Other Ecosystems (Peachtree 2003) – 2006 Izaak Walton League of America Conservation Book of the Year Award; Adopted by New York City Public Schools in support of science requirement for study of ecosystems; Hey, Daddy! Animal Fathers and Their Babies – Named Outstanding Science Read Aloud 2003 by the National Association for the Advancement of Science (Peachtree 2002); Wild Cats (Random House 2002); Anthropologist: Scientist of the People -- Named Outstanding Science Trade Book for Children by the National Science Teachers Association and the Children’s Book Council (Houghton Mifflin 2001). Other books include: Hungry Plants (Random House, 2000); The Winking, Blinking Sea -- Named one of the Best Children’s Books for 2001 (Millbrook Press, 2000); Extinct! Creatures of the Past (Golden Books, 2000); Baby Wolf (Grosset and Dunlap, 1998); Sexual Strategies: How Females Choose Their Mates, (Tarcher/Putnam, 1994); Nature’s Tricksters (Sierra Club Books/Little Brown, 1992), Discovery By Chance (Funk and Wagnalls) and The Tropical Forest: Ants, Ants, Animals and Plants (T.Y. Crowell). She has appeared on OPRAH and various other television shows.
Her magazine articles are published in a variety of publications, including Cosmopolitan, Ladies Home Journal, Modern Maturity, Shape, International Wildlife, National Geographic World, ZooNooz, and Science Digest,
Mary Batten was nominated for an Emmy for her work on the Children's Television Workshop's science series 3-2-1-CONTACT, and she has written some 50 nature documentaries for television series, including the syndicated WILD WILD WORLD OF ANIMALS (Time-Life Films) and others for National Geographic and Disney Educational Films.
Her magazine article for Science Digest, Sexual Choice: The Female’s Newly Discovered Role, won The Newswomen’s Club of New York’s Front Page Award for best feature story.
She was editor of The Cousteau Society’s award-winning membership magazine, Calypso Log, for six years.
She was married to the late composer Ed Bland. They have two children: dancer/choreographer Stefanie Batten Bland and writer Robert Bland.view less